


Bureaucracy in Action

by goodgirl_astray



Series: An angel and a demon play chess for the soul of the world [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bureaucracy, F/M, First Time, Good and Evil, Lots of Sex, more porn less plot, wanting what you shouldn't, what happens in Mesopotamia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 34,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgirl_astray/pseuds/goodgirl_astray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the truly great bureaucrats become bureaucrats after they had their time in the trenches. The story covers their meeting in Mesopotamia and their secret work relationship before  the first meeting (we see) between Crowley and Naomi (S8, E17, "Goodbye Stranger") and after that.<br/>Premises of the story:<br/>1. Crowley not having a soul (S8, E2 "What's Up, Tiger Mommy?") is unusual for a demon. To get close to becoming human again (S8, E23, "Sacrifice") he had to have a soul. My solution - Naomi found it and gave it back to him.<br/>2. Naomi is able to hide her grace.<br/>3. Naomi is alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Naomi meet in person after a long time (season 8, episode 17, “Goodbye Stranger”). That brings back memories for Crowley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television  
> I’m writing this for fun and I’m not making any money from this. The lines quoted from the show are in Italics.  
> Story starts at the first meeting (we see) between Crowley and Naomi (season 8, episode 17, “Goodbye Stranger”)

 

Crowley was just a little bit annoyed. He didn't have the tablet, he had been put in the situation to destroy a demon he was fond of torturing, his suit had a hole in it and it was stained with blood. His shoulder was tingling, healing itself where his former favourite chew toy had stabbed him, but the suit was ruined! He didn't like to use supernatural influences on his clothes. He'd just have to visit his tailor sooner than planned.

And to top the crappy day, he was now sensing this particular angelic presence! He recognized it, even if it had been a while since the last time they'd been this close.

“ _Naomi. Fancy meeting you here. Haven't seen you in a dark age. Love the haircut_.”

He saw the small smile tugging the corner of her lips at his insolent tone. He was almost touched to hear concern in her voice when she asked

“ _How's the shoulder?_ ”

“ _Just a flesh wound,_ ” he answered and wondered if her second, even briefer smile had it been just an automated response or had she got the Monty Python reference.

The rest of the conversation was a headache provoking exchange of words covering truths and worries on both sides.

In the centuries they had known each other, Naomi and Crowley had never outright lied to one another. Even when he teased her “ _If you remember our time in Mesopotamia the way I do, you know I'm a lover, not a fighter_ ” he hadn't actually lied. He had never been her lover, but he would bet serious money that he was the only being who came even close.

He didn’t resent her for disappearing at the end. His comment about her stealing his move was absent-minded. His huge, King of Hell size ego was saying that if she had stayed to hear his offer, she would have been unable to refuse.

He teleported to his current above ground deluxe suite and the thought that Naomi ran away because his “ _I must have something that you want”_ line was actually true improved his mood tremendously. He decided that she disappeared because she did want something from him.

“ _You, celestial being, have been created to be an angel of the Lord_ ”, he hummed the Enochian words pouring himself a generous amount of scotch.

He sipped at it lazily as he undressed. In privacy, he often did such human things like getting dressed and undressed instead of simply snapping his fingers to change wardrobe, or things like showering and enjoying the same brand of scotch for decades.

There were other remnants of his human self. From an abusive, unremarkable man, he had slowly risen to being the King of Hades. And because selling his soul had proven worthwhile, he always celebrated his original reason when he picked a new body. As homage to that choice, he was always fussy about the bodies he chose to inhabit. He was particular about the quality of his clothes, and downright fastidious when it came to the physical attributes of his chosen vessel. He glanced at his current body in the mirror before stepping into the shower and he liked what he saw. Even relaxed, he was proud of the size of his… endowment.

He was completely contended with his present corporeal form. He would never pick someone remarkable at a first, second or a hundredth glance. Anyone seeing him without clothes on however, would find him quite extraordinary. Of course, if someone got to see Crowley naked, it was because he had planned it.

He realized that he hadn't wanted anyone to see his extraordinary side for a long, long time. For years, power had been such a wonderful sensation. For decades, scheming had been more rewarding than mere orgasms. Building up a reputation, creating alliances, betraying without the awareness of those he betrayed – so reinvigorating. It had made the time pass by without even noticing celibacy. Well, almost celibacy. He was a demon, after all.

He wondered about Naomi. How had she handled power and scheming for all those thousands of years? Angels were not immune to lust, the existence of nephilims was proof of that. But he didn't actually need proof. He had his memories.

He got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his hips and walked onto the balcony of his penthouse suite, half naked and half drunk. Crowley raised his eyes to the stars that were sparking coldly on the black sky and remembered.

 

 


	2. Mesopotamia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has to remember his most recent and most notable meeting with Naomi if he wants to have the best chance of winning this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m using the premise that Crowley’s biography from the show is true, he was born as a human in 1661, and that his meeting with Naomi was where Mesopotamia used to be. I’m doing this just to allow myself the fun of writing another story giving him a different background if this story doesn’t put my mind at rest with this pairing.

 

 

When Crowley was about 300 years old, he was one of the younger demons rising through the ranks. And he was rising fast, only his healthy paranoia keeping him discrete. He couldn't compete with the likes of angels, old demons or knights of hell. Luckily for him, all the knights were dead, the old demons were easy to flatter and the angels could be distracted by bigger threats than him. He loved building up a the reputation of an already powerful and therefore dangerous demon, leak a few rumours about said demon's intentions to destroy humanity or attack heaven, and watch the angels following the breadcrumbs, forgetting about him and dispatching of his rival.

He was also carefully cultivating a non threatening façade, striking minor gentlemen’s agreements with angelic counterparts, so subtle and apparently so not-evil that most of them never understood how much they were being corrupted.

Everyone was so busy with mindless violence that they never had time to watch out for the deal maker. He had a clear path to the top and he was forcing himself not to run.

He was almost completely correct in his assumption. Almost no one had had the time or clarity of mind to notice him. While most demons were facing hunters and Men of Letters, and on rare occasions angels of the Lord in their shiny armours, Crowley had attracted the attention of the intelligence division of Heaven, the only organization more paranoid than him.

One night, on the shores of the Euphrates, Crowley was quietly celebrating a streak of very good deals and the imminent fall of the next demon he set up to be destroyed by Heaven.

Crowley sensed the angelic presence, and identified it almost instantly - Naomi. He had learned the name early in his demonic existence when she intervened in one of his first deals. The only reason he had remained, for the lack of a better word, alive after that encounter, was that he had backed off quickly. He was not ashamed to run away from fights he couldn't win. Naomi's power, like that of most angels, was vastly superior to his, and therefore, he was usually polite with her, downplaying his growing power in his wish to remain uninteresting to her, and he always vanished before she could think about smiting him.

Against his first instinct, Crowley approached cautiously the place that radiated her essence, not exactly intending to kill her, but not ruling out the possibility. He had his game face on, the bon vivant, the shallow, easy going, salesdemon. Under the cold starlight, he looked at the nun that contained Naomi’s spirit. Barely contained it. He noticed the pain, the metaphorical cracks in the armour. He had to take advantage, or at least study an angel on the brink of falling apart.

“Good evening,” he said in his most sensual, yet non threatening tone.

The angel looked up at him, and her sparkling blue eyes should have been a warning. Even lacking the angelic tell-tale sign of imminent smiting her look was fierce.

“Easy there, love. Not gonna bite ya,” he whispered.

The woman took a deep breath, obviously trying to control the pain. His heightened sense of sight allowed him to notice the blue veins showing unnaturally on her skin. His mind tried to find the right epithet milk white or marble white? What was she, a mother figure, a loving, innocent angel? Or was she one of those angels with the moral rigidity of a marble statue? Didn’t matter all that much. What mattered most was that she was vulnerable. And he was a still young demon. Taking down an angel would be a lovely, lovely trophy.


	3. Open your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Supernatural is an American television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television   
> I’m writing this for fun and I’m not making any money from this. The lines quoted from the show are in Italics.
> 
> This story is influenced vaguely by John LeCarre cold war era spy books.
> 
> In “Good Omens”, Crowley's first incarnation was the snake from the original sin story. That's why I had Naomi call him “snake”.

 

“Which one are you?” Naomi asked.

Crowley wasn’t sure if he was actually offended or he should pretend to be. It was unusual for an angel of the Lord not to see right through the meat suit and be able to identify immediately which demon was possessing a human. Puzzling because, for one thing, angels had a specialized intellect and almost unlimited knowledge, and for another, they didn’t have enough spirit to spew a decent insult. That added up to the conclusion that this high and mighty lady-angel was somehow wounded. He was almost purring. Wounded… vulnerable… just the way he liked it.

Years later, in some unpleasant moments of sobriety, he had to admit that thinking of her in terms of “lady-angel” should have been a warning.

“Name’s Crowley.”

The complete lack of recognition on her face annoyed him, although it should have pleased him. Not knowing him meant underestimating him, and in that there was safety, there was the chance to use the element of surprise.

“Naomi.”

She said it so quietly, her voice was barely above a whisper. He decided that there was nothing to gain if he admitted that he knew her.

“Honoured. Listen, I don’t want to ruffle your feathers… even more… but you look like you could use some help. How about a peace accord?”

When he noticed her instant bristling, Crowley raised his hands in a mollifying gesture and added with all the apparent gallantry he could reasonably add to his persona.

“For the night, darlin’, just for tonight,” he drawled.

“I’m not making a deal with you,” she said, almost softly.

In a human, that tone would be nothing more than the beginning of negotiations, a path to surrender. He didn't make the mistake to assume this was the case.

“Not offering one,” he said and extended a hand toward her.

It looked for all intended purposes like a human gesture. Her response, apparently just as human - she accepted his hand and, without words, his truce for the night. Her touch was completely alien, absolutely unlike anything he had ever experienced. Like burning ice. Like… like nothing that was supposed to exist, nothing that could be bound by the laws of nature. It didn’t seem to be this way just for him, he noted with some degree of satisfaction her slight and completely unnecessary intake of breath.

“Does it feel as good for you as it does for me?” he heard himself say in a lame attempt to shatter the awkwardness he felt.

“Shut up, snake!” she said.

“That might not be possible,” he said. “Unless you want to seal a deal with me.”

The comeback had come out of reflex, because it was actually true that he couldn't be silent. The implied suggestion that she might only silence him with a kiss was meant to make her feel uncomfortable. He always enjoyed making angels uncomfortable with more or less crass sexual innuendos, but this angel was very close. She was at eye level with him and Crowley noticed, their lips were aligned as well. He found it hard to control the urge to lean into an unsolicited kiss. He saw the spark in her beautiful blue eyes, a clue to an inner reaction that seemed to surprise her as well. When she spoke, her voice sounding very old and tired, undercutting the strangeness of her words:

“We might have to do that one day.”

And with that, she did the unthinkable, she fainted. Crowley caught her and stared incredulous at the inert body. He extended his senses gingerly to try to figure out the extent of her wounds. He planned to corrupt her or get his first angel kill, but he did not like having no understanding of a situation.

Her grace seemed… dimmed somehow. In his dealings with other angels, foot soldiers in the feathered army, he had sensed their power, their grace, and he had always made note of their flaws. Now he had the opportunity to study an angel who was hurt. He took a leap of faith that she wouldn't destroy him once she regained consciousness. It would be very useful for him to know what was wrong with her, who hurt her and why. He decided to keep her safe so that he could learn more about the vulnerabilities of angels.

The best way to do that was to take her to his temporary residence without employing traceable supernatural means. His fondness for doing things the human way had helped him more than once. Neither demons, nor angels were very good at keeping up with the humans' technical progress.

Crowley carried her to his Bentley and drove to his hotel instead of teleporting with her in his room.

“Wake up, darling”, he whispered. “Wouldn't look right if I carried you through the lobby”.

He parked the car and changed her clothes with a snap of his fingers. Showing up with a nun, even an awake nun, would also look out of place. He surprised himself stroking her hair while he whispered her name.

“Naomi...”

He couldn't found any wounds, either physical or spiritual, but he was aware he had limitations when it came to beings of light. She opened her beautiful blue eyes and he noticed that she had a hard time focusing.

“Come on. You're going to be safe here,” he said, wondering if it was true not knowing what had harmed her.

“You are... unexpectedly kind,” she said.

“Yeah, don't get used to it,” he told her when he was helping her out of the car.

She raised an eyebrow looking at the clothes she was wearing. An elegant evening dress, with quite a bit of cleavage and the wisp of silk around her neck, covering the blue veins pulsing too close to the surface of her skin and yet not covering her bosom.

“What? You have to blend in,” he said defensively. “You should appreciate I chose something decent,” he grumbled.

The angel shivered a little when he put his palm at the small of her back, guiding her. He noticed her annoyance at the bright, exquisitely decadent luxury hotel.

“This is safe?” she asked, leaning as if to whisper something intimate in his ear.

Crowley did a wonderful job of not showing his reaction. This whole evening was becoming increasingly strange. His damn body was having a physical reaction to an angel! Maybe it was just a vessel to vessel sort of issue.

“Yes. You can trust me,” he answered.

He didn't have time to be annoyed at how husky his voice sounded and how clouded his mind felt, because he had to steady her. Something was wrong with her and he wondered briefly if he was going to get his suit stained when her vessel exploded or he'd have time to teleport. At the same time, Crowley was asking himself serious questions, too. Why would she choose a vessel so unsuited to contain her? Was she in trouble, hiding from something? Was she on a mission of such urgency that she didn't have time to choose a more suitable body?

They were so close that he could see, again, her blue veins contrasting the white skin of her neck. He arranged the silk scarf to conceal this from the humans. She made a strange side, between a hiss and a sigh, when the tips of his fingers brushed against her skin. It took a lot of will power not to touch her again.

Once they were in his room, Crowley set her in his bed and began warding the room against anything he could think of. This, of course, on top of the layer of protection he already had for himself. When he was done, he poured himself a drink and waited for her to wake up or blow up. He had no compunction about removing all her clothes. He did it without touching her though. But then again, that wasn't out of a lingering sense of propriety, but self-preservation.

He watched her, learning as much as he could about the process of an angel getting comfortable in a new host. The new body seemed to resist. The writhing gave way to peaceful sleep. The veins no longer showed dangerously on her skin like blue and black tattoos. And a few minutes later, he heard her sleepy voice calling his name.

“Crowley?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. She sat up in bed, her gaze scanning the darkness, looking for him. He had drawn a circle around the bed in Holy Oil while she was asleep, just in case he had to contain her. But Naomi didn't get out of bed. When she distinguished him among the shadows in the room, she knelt on the bed, facing him. It was a disturbing image to Crowley's demon eyes... this... praying pose.

“What hurt you?” he asked.

“Don't you find it difficult to inhabit a human body?” she said with a shrug. “The feeling of confinement. The reactions, the memories and weaknesses. And sometimes, even when they accept you, some part of them holds back.”

“Not really. We take what we want. And make it our own.”

He was almost lying. Some humans were more difficult to inhabit than others. He wondered what was like to have to ask for permission to be inside one. He preferred to ask forgiveness than permission. He was a daring devil and he was getting more daring all the time.

Sometimes it worried him that he was getting too cocky. Not everybody could be as stupid as he saw them. They couldn't all think only one or two moves ahead. He had been planning to get to the higher echelons of Hell for centuries. And he hated to admit, but he did have a virtue. Patience. He could wait for the right move without blinking, without taking his eyes off the prize.

“You know you’re different, don't you?” she said apropos of nothing, and yet interrupting his thoughts almost as if she was reading his mind.

“Sure,” he said with a smugness designed to cover up the apprehension.

“We can’t see you,” she elaborated. “All angels can see the true face of a demon, no matter the human they are possessing. But not you. Some of us can sense there’s a demon in front of us, but not identify you.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Part of my duty,” she said, closing her eyes, intense sadness in her voice. “You were a human, one of those we are sworn to protect. Angels feel pain for every human soul who gets demonized.”

She was telling him too much, and she was almost straightforward which was unnerving him. This was not the sort of information given freely. Something was definitely wrong.

“But once we become demons, we’re mortal enemies, right?”

He felt silly to ask something so obvious but the whole thing was unreal.

“It is our duty to fight for every human soul. Try to get it out of hell if we can.”

“You? Would fight to save my soul?” he asked incredulous.

Naomi opened her eyes, searching for his gaze. Her beautiful blue eyes were sparkling. Were those tears?

“I would, if you still had one. Can’t you tell?” she put a palm on her chest, over her heart. “You don’t have your soul any more.”

Crowley reeled at the notion. It was like an adult human learning that he was hatched from an egg and was actually a bird that had no feathers and walked on two legs. Demons were forged in hell, from human souls, tormented to the extent that they lost the humanity and remained sheer, malevolent spirits.

They stayed in silence for a while. When she spoke again, her voice didn’t have even a remnant of that celestial self-assurance he abhorred, but always capitalised on.

“I am at an unusual point in the existence of an angel. I have a choice to make.”

This was a good confirmation. Crowley ticked an imaginary box in his mind: angels have their actions programmed, therefore they can only react predictably. At the same time, he made a mental note: **most** angels don’t have choices. Some, Naomi included, could choose. Danger and opportunity. He should identify as many of these mutant angels as he could. They would be so useful.

“I know you’re gathering information for Lilith. You are helping her set the stage for releasing Lucifer.”

He shuddered. He had been careful. They knew?! They, **she** knew about Lilith, knew about him learning about the seals, and worst of all she knew that he was involved!

“Yes, you should be worried,” she went on. “But you’re wrong to fear only us. Think! Best case scenario. You succeed, Lucifer – the most powerful of all the angels - is out of the cage. What does he want?”


	4. Revelations

Think!

And with that, the wheels started turning. His thoughts were weaving themselves in an unexpected pattern. What was the basic assumption on which he had operated all these years? That Lucifer was the creator of their species and He was the only one who could rule the underworld. But what was He and what did He want? He was an angel. The most powerful of all angels. And He wanted to wipe out humanity. An angel who hated human beings. So how would He feel about a race that was a bastardised version of humanity?

Best case scenario. Lucifer out of the cage. The extermination of the human race. What use would demons be if not to contribute bringing souls into hell. No human race, no souls, no demons. Simple enough. Unthinkable. And yet...

“This is a trick,” he said, without conviction, looking at the naked angel on his bed.

She looked back without speaking for a while, letting him read her. Nothing in her features, in her body language, in her aura, nothing gave away a single sign of deceit.

“You didn't ask what is the choice I have to make,” she said.

“Too many revelations in such a short time,” he muttered, only a trace of the distrust he felt noticeable in his voice.

A smile lifted the corner of her mouth for a second. The smile had been fleeting but Crowley would always remember it. He could make this angel smile.

“Time is precious. It took a lot of planning to have even these few moments alone with you.”

Crowley looked at her, trying to ignore the nakedness, and almost completely succeeding. If this was a trap, he was damned (eye-roll) if he could see the end game. He realized he was still silent, with his mouth probably hanging open a little, when she spoke again.

“What is the most important question in the game?”

“Why,” he answered.

“Indeed. One should always wonder why something is done.”

“All right. Why? Why are you talking to me?”

She looked at him, her expression quietly pleased. A teacher's expression.

“Because you can make a difference.”

“Because I'm different?” he asked with a note of derision in his voice.

“Very much so.”

Her obvious earnestness was annoying.

“How can you be sure I understood what you wanted me to understand?”

“You are the smartest being I encountered in my whole existence. And that is a long time and a lot of beings. You know what's my role in heaven?”

“Intelligence,” he said unable to resist telling the truth.

“I studied, taught and changed more beings than you can imagine. Your mind is flawless. There is nothing I would do to change how it works. The only limitations come from your upbringing and the amount of data you have at your disposal.”

“Oh, now, I'm not just different, I'm perfect? Not all demons respond to flattery, you know.”

“You're not perfect yet. But it was a matter of timing. This is the only moment when I could reach you unbeknownst to anyone.”

“You snuck down here to meet me? Daddy doesn't know? Big brother Michael is in the dark?” he asked trying to annoy her, without avail.

“No. No one knows. I chose this body because it can shield me for a while from heaven. The only way to talk to you was to become human. I am vulnerable now. You can end me and you'd have long enough to get away before they would figure it out,” she said.

He remained seated watching as she came toward him, stepping unaffected on the angel sigil. Naked. Beautiful. Obviously mortal.

“I'm mortal now,” she confirmed his thoughts. “It would still count as an angel kill if you decide to do it. Your reputation will be enhanced.”

His mind worked faster than ever before. She had just opened his mind to the possibility that if Lilith's plan was successful, if Azazel managed to create the perfect vessel for Lucifer, if everything he had worked for would be a success, all humans and all demons would be destroyed. And most likely all angels would live forever in their cold, perfect heaven. Lucifer would destroy a lot of angels, too, in the meantime, but still, not in the least Crowley's idea of a perfect ending. The question that mattered.

“If he loses or if he wins, angels are safe. Why do you want intervene?” he asked her, running his fingers along the side of her body, from waist to thigh, while she remained standing in front of his armchair.

The shivers this contact caused in his physical form helped him draw his mind back just a little from the enormity of what he was contemplating – betraying Satan. He kept the caress light, despite the surge of madness that was pushing him to grab hard the flesh instead of barely touching the skin.

“Humanity,” she answered, “rubs off if one deals with humans long enough. You are already feeling it, but you think it's a remnant of your human self. It is not.”

Her body was trembling under his touch, her voice was wavering. Her eyes were growing darker, the black of the pupils conquering almost all of the brilliant blue, but she went on speaking.

“They're so... inventive. You can't imagine the boredom before they were here.”

Her eyes were heavy lidded, her voice had faint harmonics of lust that were driving him to distraction. He kept touching her, gambling his existence on the guess that he would be able to handle the sensory overload better than her. Both his vessel and himself had a lot more experience with carnal desire than the nun and the angel that resided in her.

“What do you think I can do? You're talking about the hindering the plan of the most powerful of all angels, who is served by the most powerful and most insane of all demons.”

“I do not know. But I know that there are none who will do anything.”

None who will. Not none who can.

“There are others who can?” he asked softly, while his fingers were burning coldly. He could feel the very real blood flow under the sensation of icy fire. He was less and less able to ignore the feeling of soft skin against his sensitive, curious fingers.

“You yourself named them moments ago.”

Daddy. Big brother Michael. Two beings whose power he feared more than that of Lucifer. Although, in the darkest part of his mind, Crowley didn't believe that “Daddy” existed. There had been no intervention from God in thousands of years. And even before that,all there was had come through the words of angels. Angels like Michael or that poor bastard, Metatron.

“Why don't they?”

She shrugged and it did things to her body that made him lose track of the conversation for a heartbeat. She was completely unaware of her nakedness. He was beginning to doubt that he was the more clear minded of them until he heard the softest of sounds escaping her lips.

 


	5. Touching an angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television  
> I’m writing this for fun and I’m not making any money from this. The lines quoted from the show are in Italics.

 

He memorized the way he was touching her when she sighed, but went on talking as if nothing else was going on. Crowley's voice was usually low and gravelly when he wasn't shouting his real or pretended anger. He wondered briefly if she was aware that his arousal was lowering it even more. He was well aware of the effect this had on most women.

Without an inner debate, he decided. Whatever her reasons for this crazy meeting, he had made up his mind. Maybe the success of Lucifer's plan would mean the end of all demons, including his precious and beloved self, maybe not. But he would put all his ingenuity against the Morning Star because for the first time he saw the opportunity to get rid of him. With angelic assistance, he could aim not just for higher echelons of hell, but for the rule of Hell.

Time to make a deal.

“You're right,” he said continuing his lazy caresses. “I can throw a spanner in the works. Are you going to help me?”

“How?”

He almost purred hearing her ask the question in a sensual exhalation of air. He knew that there were only shreds of control left in her. The poor, untouched, dreaded angel was, probably for the first time, close to someone who wasn't treating her like she was a dangerous ethereal being. He thought about pulling her in his lap, but decided against it. She could snap to reality if he did. Or he might forget himself, which was an astonishing but not impossible outcome.

“Information. There are things I will want to know that would be dangerous for me to ask the wrong person.”

He was now holding her hands, running his thumbs over her wrists, observing the rapid rhythm of her pulse, imagining the flow of blood being pumped forcefully through her. He wondered in passing what would it taste like. The blood of a nun inhabited by an angel. It must taste... divine...

“Indeed,” she agreed. “Discretion is paramount. I will help you.”

His fingers no longer seemed sensitive enough to experience her closeness. He brought her left wrist to his lips and placed a feather light first kiss on her skin. It burnt him. She tensed, probably having a similar sensation, and pulled back her hand a little. Crowley tightened his grip, although he didn't have to because she hadn't meant to get away from him. He liked the sensation of holding her tight, holding her against her will, holding her until it hurt. With an effort of will he distanced himself from this dangerous, slippery slope of his dark imagination.

“Do you know how I can get my soul back?” he asked, whispering against her skin.

“Yessss,” she hissed, like she was in pain, like she was on fire.

“You're going to help me get it back?” he asked, kissing her right wrist.

She knelt before him, without trying to free her hands. She just put her palms on his cheeks, with his own hands like handcuffs around her wrists.

“Of course,” she said, looking into his eyes.

The sensation of icy burning on his cheeks and her hypnotizing gaze were destabilizing his mental compass. He was barely appreciating the image of a beautiful naked woman kneeling before him, he was only aware of her proximity. He could hear the loud, rapid thumping of her very human heart. He could feel the maddening pulse under his thumbs when she leaned in and kissed his forehead chastely. They stayed like that, without moving, for a few seconds that seemed to last an eternity. Then she slipped away from him, standing up again.

“How can I contact you?” he asked.

“You can't,” Naomi answered. “Because you don't pray,” she explained. “And any other way would reveal our...” she hesitated for a moment, as if looking for the proper word and settled for “collaboration. When you need to talk to me, come back to Mesopotamia. Alone.”

He saw that she was regaining her composure. About time he did the same.

“Mesopotamia? I know it's not polite to remind a lady of her age, but this land hasn't been known as Mesopotamia for several centuries.”

He spoke in such an insolent tone that Naomi actually blushed. He pressed his advantage by leering openly at her nakedness, now that she was a few feet away. Crowley took his time looking her up and down, pausing on the places of most interest and he had the satisfaction to see her blushing intensify. Naomi was becoming aware of her nakedness in a way that hadn't occurred to her before. She couldn't sustain his gaze and moved her arms in a demure attempt of covering herself.

In a heartbeat Crowley covered the distance between them, his hands encircling her wrists again, holding her arms to either side of her body. They were looking in each other's eyes, and time seemed to stay still again. Sparks of something like electricity were filling the air between them.

“What is the choice?”

Before she answered, he felt the change. He sensed the power flowing through her. He saw the expansive wings opening, so big that they almost touched the ceiling. He saw her beautiful body was no longer naked, but covered in sparkling silver dress.

“To smite you or to save you.”

The burning sensation intensified. It became an unbearable pain, like acid on his palms. The light of her essence so strong it felt like a laser beam cutting through Crowley's heart.

Naomi's features were showing pain as well, yet she wasn't trying to free herself from his grasp. His grip became harder, but he no longer felt as though he was holding her captive by force. There was only a deep sadness in her eyes.

“Who would have thought this to be your first choice?” he murmured, and vanished.

 

 

 


	6. Secret angel-demon cooperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secret meetings between Crowley and Naomi in which they discuss the progress of the plan to kill Lucifer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer
> 
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television
> 
> I’m writing this for fun and I’m not making any money from this.

Crowley stood on the shores of the Euphrates, looking at the river that had witnessed some of the most horrific battles between the armies of Heaven and Hell, pondering those simpler times. If things would still be simple, if evil and good just as readily identifiable as then, he would not be on the path to the throne of Hell.

It hardly registered to him that his house had been burned down. Just the fact that he lost his tailor bothered him a little. It was hard to find that level of craftsmanship in this century and he was aware that it would be months until he would be safe for him to visit Savile Row. Naomi appeared next to him out of thin air. He was expecting her and it still freaked out that she just knew when he was alone.

“So, it begins,” she said.

“They have the Colt. Out of my hands now.”

Naomi nodded almost uninterestedly which annoyed him.

“Oh, it's not like it's the future of... everyone at stake. Please, stay calm! Don't care too much or anything!” he almost yelled at her.

“I care. Do you think that I should be surprised that you managed to give them the weapon? You can talk anyone into anything.”

He wrinkled his forehead as if considering her remark, than nodded, granting her the point. Apparently he could be flattered, too. Although, it wasn't flattery if it was true. The comment coming from Naomi of all people, he considered it high praise.

“Actually I think it went a little too smoothly,” he said.

Naomi gave him one of his least favourite looks: the disappointed pure angel.

“Their mother died in flames. A demon took their father's soul. One of them lost the woman he loved and the other lives believing he will never have a family of his own. All this to bring them to this point and you think it went smoothly?”

“You used to like how I think,” he pointed out.

“I never said that. Your mind is flawless, that didn't mean I like it.”

“Why are you quibbling?” Crowley asked coming closer to her.

“I'm worried,” she admitted. “All this grand design to be undone by a human weapon.”

She shook her head, looking deeply troubled. So much so that she wasn't distancing herself from him.

“Is this what got your knickers in a twist then?” he asked, squeezing her shoulder, almost affectionately.

She turned to face him. He allowed his hand to glide along her upper arm as if by accident. He was addicted to the tingling sensation he got from touching her through layers of fabric.

“Why are you hiding your soul?” she asked looking him straight in the eye.

Oh, that.

“You still don't trust me!” he exclaimed, trying an evasive manoeuvre.

“Why, Crowley?”

Not cockroach. Not snake. His name. He sighed.

“Because I wouldn't be able to do this if I have it. It makes me doubt myself.”

“After this is over, if you remain soulless, I will have to destroy you. ”

“Threats, Naomi? Really?”

He was no longer the young demon she could grind under the heal of her show, but he wasn't sure he could win in a fight. Not yet.

“Just a warning. We both know that I'm not one for open combat, but you leave me no choice.”

Not open combat, but she had her talents. She had managed to sneak into Hell and get his soul back. That spelled all kinds of dangerous. But he couldn't admit anything like that aloud.

“I'm sure you can come up with something. You, bureaucrats, always do.”

She flinched at his words.

“I am not a bureaucrat! Just because I try to get things done cleanly, before there's need for bloodshed, doesn't mean that I'm a bureaucrat!”

“It wasn't an insult, love. It was meant as a compliment to your resourcefulness.”

Naomi's eyes starting glowing with celestial light and her whole being began to sparkle. Crowley decided it was a good moment to vanish. He did it with a smirk on his face, thinking that, for his favourite angel, her reaction was the equivalent of the stereotypical Italian woman throwing a plate at her lover's head during a heated argument. The fun thing about stereotypical Italian relationships was that crazy arguments ended up in fiery make up sex. It had never happened with him and Naomi, but a demon could dream.

 

\---------------

 

“IT DIDN'T WORK! IT DIDN'T BLOODY WORK!!” Crowley was yelling. 

In her seat, Naomi was watching him patiently.

“Are you quite done?”

“Oh, excuse me. I thought that was something to be worried about. Not like now I'm on the black list of the most powerful being in existence. Oh, wait I AM!!!”

“You really like the sound of your voice,” she said.

“Yes, well, I don't take it graciously when my plans don't work,” he said in an almost perfectly calm tone.

She smiled at his admission. This calmed him down even more and that was disturbing.

“Let's find another way, then.”

Crowley smiled despite himself. He kind of liked the idea of a brainstorming session with Naomi. She wasn't his kind of smart, she had too much knowledge to deal with and she was slow at making certain connections that seemed obvious to him, but she was coming closer than anyone else. At least she was smart enough to appreciate him to his true value.

Their collaboration worked because she had the raw data and her construction allowed her to present the facts without, or at least with little distortion due to personal views.

“Okay, let's go back to the basics. What can kill Lucifer?”

She answered promptly, machine-like.

“Another archangel or an archangel blade.”

They both fell silent and Crowley tried to clear his mind. He decided to distract himself from the problem and the only interesting thing in the room was the quiet angel who sat in an armchair across from him with an expression of serenity and meditation.

He tried to undress her in his minds, to superimpose the image of her naked body over the reality of her office attire. It was working pretty well and he was at an interesting point, mentally caressing her inner thigh when the listening device in the Wichesters' car started transmitting. The demon and the angel listened in awe. Dean and Sam were talking about remaking the Cage.

“Gabriel,” Naomi whispered.

Crowley turned to watch her. He had never heard that tone before.

“A soft spot? Naomi, I am shocked,” he said it with his silkiest voice.

He was trying to embarrass her but he was the one pretending that he didn't notice her blush. And pretended real hard that it did not bothered him.


	7. Bridge over time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is supposed to bridge the gap and take the story beyond what they showed on TV.

 

Crowley made a swift recap of the evening news: Gabriel, the MIA archangel had been alive all along, what’s more Crowley himself had run into him more than once in his guise as the Trickster, and now that he could have been useful, was actually dead. Fucking great!

“We have to help them,” Naomi said.

When Crowley looked at her he saw her eyes sparkling with tears like sapphire in the moonlight. Hmm… his special angel had a past. He was narcissist enough to dismiss her past and enjoy the fact that her present use of the plural meant the two of them. Useful as the late archangel might have been, he was dead now. Dead like so many other powerful beings. While Crowley was still standing. In the shadows for the moment, but still standing.

They set up the plan that night.

Crowley saw Naomi accept the price that should never be acceptable for an angel. If he had his soul, he might have been inclined to point it out. She was trading Lucifer’s imprisonment for two human souls: Bobby Singer and Sam Winchester.

For the first time, he saw her as the guard dog of heaven when she agreed to his key pressure points.

For the first time, Crowley truly appreciated Naomi’s angelic background, not just for her encyclopedic knowledge of… everything. He saw the guardian angel in her when she suggested soft touches he could use – when he used Bobby’s soul to find Death, he should also grant him the use of his legs again. It was so useful and so perverse, that Crowley was smiling like the Cheshire cat. He saw the intelligence officer in her when she gave him the idea of how to use flip Brady’s loyalty. He knew it got to her when he rolled off his tongue the phrase “lovers in league against Satan”. In a way, that was what the two of them were. Who would have believed it? Crowley and Naomi lovers in league against Satan. Well… not lovers, but the point still stood.

“This is just plan B,” she said. “The best option is for Michael to incarnate. If Dean Winchester accepts him, all this… doesn’t have to happen.”

He heard in her voice that she was trying to soothe her conscience. Not conscience, actually. Angel had no souls, so instead of conscience they had… programming?

“Have you met Dean Winchester?” Crowley asked mockingly.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“He’s not going to accept Michael. I would wager my soul on that.”

She looked at him furious. Not only he had burst her bubble of hope that she hadn’t just doomed two souls, but he had reminded her about his own soul. The night was full of first times: for the first time, Naomi grabbed the collar of his jacket with her right hand and pushed him against the wall. She extended her left arm and something that looked like a grey cloud with lightning sparkling through it appeared on her palm. Before he could think of reacting, she put the palm on his chest, pressing the dirty light into him.  Crowley heard her voice through the excruciating pain.

“You little being have no idea what I had to do for this! How it affected me! How it still affects me! You better prove that you are special and imprison the creator of your miserable race or I will come after you. I am not as quick as you, but I have millennia of experience. I can do things you cannot even imagine, with your mere three hundred years.”

She wasn’t sparkling, on the verge of smiting him. It was a colder, deeper kind of rage and while he teleported away from her, Crowley promised himself that it would be the last time he runs away from her.

 

\--------------------------------------

 

Months passed. Then years. It felt like ages. Like long, mad, dark ages.  

Their plan worked, Lucifer was caged, and as a bonus, so was Michael. Castiel became God, then gave it up as a bad job, but not before dispatching of the last archangel, Raphael. All these things were happening at an alarming pace, Crowley’s fortune rose and fell with Castiel and the Winchesters, but never, neither in his darkest moments, nor when his star was rising, never did Crowley go back to “Mesopotamia”.

He was sure that she was keeping tabs on him. So, he started keeping tabs on her. It took him a while, but he managed to turn one of her most trusted agents, Ion. And, despite knowing in his bones that she was watching him, Crowley researched ways to get rid of his soul. And, despite finding out how to do it, he kept his word to her.

In his research, Crowley found about the deep bond that tied them together. Crowley learned that Castiel was tied to the Winchesters not just by circumstance, and common purposes – of friendship as they called it, but by the fact that he had got both of them out of hell. They weren’t really aware that it was more than friendship or gratitude. They were bound together. And so were he and Naomi.

Crowley took a page out of the Winchesters’ book and decided to ignore it. He told himself that he gathered information about her from Ion because she was a threat, and it was the truth. He always told the truth. It was important. It was essential. But it didn’t have to be all the truth.

His disastrous collaboration with Castiel brought Naomi vividly into his mind. Naomi hadn’t betrayed him. Naomi went to hell for him. Naomi saw his greatness, not just his usefulness. He had to force himself not to probe Castiel for news of her.

Events were developing madly. Leviathans, God 2.0 aka Castiel, angels fighting angels. Crowley expected to hear about her. Expected her to rise to the rule of heaven. Expected her to transform Heaven into another version of his Hell. Order and quiet.

Nothing. Not a whisper.

But when word of the tablets surfaced, Ion started really earning his money. He was so troubled by news about Naomi manipulating poor messed up Castiel that his attention slipped and that bitch “Meg” stabbed him. In a way, that was lucky, because it helped him from play cool and amused when Naomi appeared.

The tone of her voice when she inquired, a little more than politely, about his shoulder made him wonder what would be like if she came to him and healed him with that angelic power the winged smug bastards had.

As he had promised himself, he hadn’t been the one to vanish. She had been the one to blink.

 

\-------------------------------

 

They met again when he tried to keep Bobby Singer’s soul in hell. Crowley tried to be snarky, tried to be the tough guy in front of the Winchesters, but his heart wasn’t in it. When he and Naomi would finally settle their issue, it would be in private, no living or ethereal hunters hanging around.

He let her win, enjoying the sensation of yet another lovers’ spat. Crowley allowed himself to hope that things were getting back to some sense of sanity. When the two of them were talking again. Soon enough, there would appear a reason for them to work together.

They squabbled like teenagers over the tablets. He even got the satisfaction of shooting at her a bullet made out of an angel sword. He was so pleased to see her glowing and disappearing. The balance of power was definitely changing in his favour.

 

\-----------------

 

Crowley figured out Metatron’s plan when it was too late to act. All he had left was to go to Mesopotamia. When she didn’t appear next to him in a matter of minutes, he did the unthinkable. He prayed for her.

“Why?”

He opened his eyes and raised his head at the sound of her voice. He felt like making a joke. He felt like telling her that she made his prayers come true. But time was getting unbearably insufficient. He could live without having her in his life, but alive, somewhere in her cold Heaven.

“The scribe is dangerous. The prophet kept saying that there are notes on the tablets.”

“Why did you call me?” she asked.

Her voice was maddeningly calm. Her patience was driving him insane. His temper flared and he yelled at her an acceptable version of the truth.

“Because you’re in danger!”

“Times are dangerous. It’s that sort of universe these days,” she quoted the words he had said to Castiel.

“I know you, Naomi! You’re going to stick your nose into that mind of his. This is a two bit angel who managed to stay cloaked from all of you and all of us for so long. This is an angel who understands the word of God!! Don’t underestimate him!”

He grabbed her wrists and looked into her eyes while he yelled at her in a tone that had no trace of humour. His palms burned again, the same sensation of acid on skin as all those years ago.

“Your concern is touching,” she said, without irony, and went on before he could interrupt her, “and you are right. That is exactly what I’m going to do. I have to try to stop him.”

Naomi freed her right hand from his grip and touched the side of his face softly. It didn’t burn as he expected. Even in such a moment of tension and worry, a part of his mind observed the anomaly. If he was touching her, in anger, in a manner meant to restrain her, the skin to skin contact was burning. When she was touching him, with… affection? there was no pain. He decided to make an experiment, now that his left hand was no longer holing her right.

Slowly, almost shyly, he touched her forehead and her temple with his fingers. No pain. Just that thrill of electricity sparkling. He dared more. Slid his hand through her hair. No pain. He cupped the back of her head and pulled her gently toward him. His right hand was still gripping tightly her left wrist, and there was still pain there. But when their lips touched, there was no pain. Just tingling. He whispered, his lips brushing hers.

“Don’t get killed.”

She smiled, and her lips brushed his as she answered him.

“No deal.”

With that, as it kept happening lately, she vanished.  

 


	8. The story starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley feels when Naomi is killed. When she visits him in the Winchesters' bunker, he first believes he's hallucinating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television 
> 
> The chapter begins in “Sacrifice” - season 8, episode 23 and goes through the beginning of season 9.  
> I used Monty Python's “Parrot Sketch”. Not mine. And the line from Good Omens. Also not mine.

Bureaucracy in Action

 

 

The script was finished. The Scribe had won. Crowley's world crumbled. Even if the gates of Heaven were the ones being closed, not the gates of Hell, his world was into pieces. He was on the brink of becoming human again. Powerless, chained up, overwhelmed by feelings!! He felt her disappear, felt the connection between them fade away. He had learned about the connection between a soul rescued from Hell and the angel who got it out, but he truly understood it only when it was gone.

Stupid, stupid angel! She let herself be killed. He had warned her and she just wouldn't listen!

But his survival instinct wouldn't let him wallow in feelings he neither wanted, nor was able to control. He had to fight for his life. The way she, the stupidest angel in all creation, had decided not to.

And Crowley fought. He bit Sam and used the blood to ask for help from his subjects. When Abaddon tried to kill him, he barely survived, but the brownie points he had earned with the Winchesters, kept him alive.

Crowley bided his time, chained to a chair, in the middle of a devil trap, in darkness and in silence. He had that one secret virtue. Patience. He would be out of his chains. His chance would come.

In the darkness of the Winchesters bunker, wherever that might have been, she came to him again.

“Hello Crowley.”

Naomi.

He instantly recognized her voice, her presence, as in a dream, and yet as all the times they had been close. The human blood was messing with his mind even more than the trap and the magic manacles he was wearing with the grace of a fallen Christ.

“You're dead,” he whispered. “All the other angels have fallen, but you're not among them. You are dead.”

He wasn't looking at her but he heard the smile in her voice.

“I am not.”

He shook his head stubbornly. Tears were coming to his eyes, caused by the pain of losing her and even more the self pity for losing his mind. He was even feeling the soul -to-angel connection that had been lost when she had died.

“I know I'm going crazy. You can't be here. Even if angels could become ghosts, you wouldn't haunt me. I never harmed you.”

“Why do you think I'm dead?” she asked.

It was just like her, to sound calm and collected when making the supernatural equivalent of a conjugal visit. He was tempted to answer her, to tell her that he pieced things together from what he heard from the Winchesters and Castiel, to tell her that he felt her dying. No point debating with a hallucination. He based his rant on a Monty Python sketch that, had she been truly there, Naomi probably wouldn't have recognized.

“You have passed on. You are an angel no more. You are expired and gone to meet your maker. You are a stiff. Bereft of life. You rest in peace! You kicked the bucket. You shuffled off your feathery coil. Run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. YOU ARE AN EX ANGEL!”

“Why are you so sure?” she asked, the smile even more clearly audible in her voice.

“I felt you fade! YOU LET HIM KILL YOU!!!”

Naomi took pity on him. She lit a candle. He saw her, every bit as beautiful as he remembered. The shadows were playing across her face, in turns concealing and revealing her smile and her eyes.

Then she came closer. Oh, the hallucinations of the King were better than reality! His mind, the very mind that the real Naomi had considered perfect, was now broken. Was now lying to him. His beautiful mind was fooling all of his senses. Once the hallucination got close, he could smell her, and when she got closer still, when she reached out to touch him, he could feel her fingers tracing the fine lines around his eyes, tracing the contour of his lips. He felt her lips touch his forehead. And all the touches felt exactly like those from so long ago, when she had presented herself to him in mortal form. On the inside, Crowley was roaring with laughter at the irony of his madness – his broken mind was reminding him of the one time Naomi had allowed him power of life and death over her, while at that very moment, he was the powerless one.

“I wanted to thank you for the warning,” she said, pressing her lips almost chastely against his temple.

“It was so completely characteristically chivalrous of you to do it,” she said, kissing him properly. “The fact that it served your interests to have me alive and useful rather than dead and not useful does not change the fact that, in your way, you tried to help me.”

Her words were alternated with teasing kisses. She was zeroing in on his mouth. By the time she reached the corner of his lips, he was squirming, willing himself to believe that she was not a figment of his imagination. That she was real.

“God helps those who help themselves,” were the last words she said for a while.

Crowley allowed himself the pleasure of her touches. There was little choice, restrained as he was. The hallucination was frustratingly avoiding his mouth. For a while frustration kept building, having her straddling him, squirming in his lap, kissing him with mounting dare. All he was allowed to do was sniff her hair and brush his lips against her throat and shoulders when she was close enough to his mouth. The frustration reached a certain point when his flawless brain started to work again.

If she was created by his imagination, most of her behaviour was explainable. That was exactly how he had imagined her. Eager to learn his body with her mouth and her hands, but still timid at first. Still unsure of what she wanted or what she should do. With an immensity of knowledge at her disposal, she would seem virginal at their first sensual encounter.

The thing that irked him was why she wasn’t kissing him on the mouth. He had imagined that first kiss more times than it was in keeping with his status as King of Hell. She was experimenting with a very pleasant way of nibbling at his earlobe when the truth became self evident. She wasn’t kissing him on the mouth because that’s how deals were sealed. Even without a soul, Naomi would never risk making a deal with him. The connection between them was so strong that a deal might occur just based on her unspoken desires. There was no literature on this subject –demonized souls being rescued from hell had never been documented to his knowledge.

“You’re real,” he said, exhaling the words along with a sigh.

“I told you so,” she said, not pausing from what she was doing.

He started laughing. The sound was warm, the laughter was shaking his whole body, the entire room seemed to have lit up. She stood straight, and looked him in the eye with an inquiring expression. Crowley made sure he memorized every detail: she looked tousled, lips a bit swollen from kisses, bosom trembling from shallow, rapid breaths, cheeks reddened, and her eyes… there was no trace the blue irises. Her pupils were completely dilated.

“How? How did you survive?”

He should ask her to get him out of those chains. He should think carefully of the why. Why was she there. He should have thought about a lot of things and yet all he managed to do was to be happy that she was alive. And learning how she survived would prolong the momentary happiness.

He watched her relax. She pasted herself against his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder. Her lips were tickling the skin on his neck when she spoke.

“A trick. I barely managed to pull it off. I supressed my grace. They all thought I was dead. And I just let myself sliiiiide… from Heaven. You who love quoting the English humourists so much: I didn’t so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards.”

He laughed again. Naomi quoting Pratchett talking about Crawly. Priceless.

“I learned so much from you, my king,” she whispered, her voice vibrating as his laughter shook them both. “Always so careful with the bodies you inhabit. You made me think differently. Following you for all those centuries… I managed to find this body. That can supress my very essence. For a while.”

“I remember,” he said, kissing her hair, above her temple, the best he could reach.

“I can’t free you,” she said, sitting up again.

Her eyes were blue again, but most of her appearance was still that of a cherub up to no good. He nodded, having expected this. If Naomi could have freed him, they wouldn’t have spent a second more than necessary in this place. Not because she cared about him so much that she didn’t want him to suffer, but because she wouldn’t risk discovery and capture. So, it was time for the essential question. Why had she reveal to him that she was alive.

“Why are you here?”

She should have expected the question, but she looked surprised. Crowley was beginning to wonder if he missed something when he noticed that she was blushing and looking more and more embarrassed. What the… his mental exclamation was interrupted by her muttered reply.

“I want to know something.”

“What?” he asked, shocked at the answer he had guessed.

“I want to know… what it feels like… to make love to you.”

Brave little ex-angel. Muttered or not, her words were a truth so embarrassing that he knew no other angel who would admit it aloud.


	9. The First Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story fills in gaps with my headcannon.  
> I'm well aware that the show leaves gaps and unexplained stuff the size of Grand Canyon and they make up stuff for plot convenience and we all still love it, so don't expect from an explanation about who removed Crowley's soul, why and exactly where in Hell it was hidden – let's just be happy that Naomi is enough of a badass to go get it. Also, no detailed explanation about Naomi's descent and how she was able to retain her host body. I could do that but the story would have too many boring bits.

He wasn't laughing any more although he really felt like it. This has never been among his plans (the King did not have fantasies. He had plans, contingencies, schemes). Sexually adventurous though he was, his greed for power had not translated into finding pleasure in submission, like so many other powerful humans he had “worked with” over the centuries. Her timing amused him to no end. Of all the moments when he could have given her what she needed – she wanted to know about making love, but he was sure that what she needed was a hard shag – she stumbled upon this one!

He was barely standing his current predicament - being chained in the Winchesters' basement. The only thing that kept him from insanity was his long trained patience, and his awareness that they were more afraid of him than they were letting on. He had his long, very long term plans that helped him accept his captivity to the hands of some of his most useful enemies.

“Hell of a timing, love,” he said.

Her eyes fluttered a little, embarrassment painted all over her face. The penny dropped – she had actually chosen this moment. Because, just like Moose and Squirrel, she was too afraid of him to engage into something like this while he was free and in possession of all his powers. Oh, she was going to pay for this once he got free! Crowley hid the thought and the incipient “plans” deep in his mind. He didn't want her to catch on to his dark and delicious designs.

“Oh, you sneaky little angel,” he said, in the sweetest, sexiest tone he could muster under the circumstances. “You chose this moment. To have me at your mercy, unable to resist you, unable to do anything to you. Wam bam thank you, your Majesty.”

Naomi looked horrified.

“I would never do something against your will! I thought you...” she looked down, between their bodies.

He was aroused and given his huge size, the arousal was obvious.

“Didn't say I don't want to. Just remarking on how incredibly sneaky it was to choose the one situation in which I can't do anything to you. By the way, this means that you'll have to do all the heavy lifting. Think you can handle **me** , love?”

“Yes,” she whispered softly. “I prepared for this,” she said even quieter.

Crowley was about to ask what she meant by that, jealous and excited at the same time by images of her training with toys and training with other men. His thoughts were interrupted however by the feel of her long, elegant fingers undoing his pants in hurried, nimble moves. His cock sprang out, hard and eager and Crowley cursed that the chain around his neck was preventing him to move his head enough to see her hands busily worshipping him. He felt everything though, the caresses, the pressure of her delicate grip. He hissed with pleasure and frustration.

In a very efficient manner, Naomi hitched up her pencil skirt and straddled him, ready to impale herself sweetly on his cock. He wanted that more than anything he could think of at the moment, more than he wanted to be free from his chains, and yet he heard himself talking.

“I think I deserve some foreplay. It's not fair to take me like that, without at least giving me a chance to...” his voice trailed off and Naomi exclaimed in a high pitched voice:

“To what?!”

Oh, the wonderful sound of her frustration was balm to his wounded dominant personality.

“Open your shirt,” he said.

His tone was calm, like a suggestion made by a senior partner in a business meeting. Naomi froze in the awkward position she was, legs on the either side of his chair and her opening almost touching the tip of his huge cock. Crowley knew that all she had to do was disobey him, impale herself on his cock and he would give and take as much pleasure as he could in that situation. He knew that they both wanted and needed the release, and that, for her, the smartest thing would be to do what she had planned and ignore his words.

He was smiling serenely at her when she had raised her eyes from what she was doing to look at him. It was that Cheshire cat smile that he knew annoyed her. But he also knew that the reason it annoyed her was that it meant that he was in control of the situation. She closed her eyes slowly and her hands moved to the buttons of her shirt. In that moment, that sign of submission made Crowley realize that he might actually love this strange being.

Her skin looked creamy, her breasts were perfect in their modesty.

“Come closer. I want to touch you.”

She obeyed with maddening slowness. Crowley could feel her body shaking with the strain of maintaining that position, and probably in no small part with emotions she was unused to. Her legs were shaking slightly and she pressed them against his to steady herself. His face was between her breasts now, his beard scratching the velvet skin. The chain allowed him only millimeters to move, which was a blessing and a curse. With so little leeway, all he could do was to rub his beard gently against her breasts one at a time and place the lightest kisses, which felt appropriate to the moment and yet he still felt like biting her, punishing her for... For what? For making him want her so desperately...

“Left,” he whispered, straining to reach her left breast with his lips.

She turned and offered it to his greedy mouth. Crowley flicked his tongue over her nipple. Electricity shot through them, as expected, and when he closed his mouth around her tender flesh, Naomi lost concentration for a second, her knees gave in and she lowered herself. Enough for the tip of his cock to plug her opening. Electricity, again, coursed through their bodies. That highly addictive feeling of sharing lightning with her.

“No!” Crowley commanded and Naomi managed to steer her body so that his hard cock popped out and slid between her hot lips, smearing them with his precome. Her breast had popped out of his mouth as well. “The right one. Now,” he demanded.

Naomi sighed as she arched her back, offering him what he asked. She started to move her pelvis, rubbing her slit against his hardness. Crowley's mind was getting more and more clouded. He tried to find some way of torturing her, but everything that came to mind would cause him further frustration. And even his patience had a breaking point. His decision was further helped by Naomi's moans.

“Please,” she was begging in ragged whispers. “please, please, please, please”.

He grazed her flesh with his teeth before delivering her from pain.

“You may. Now.”

It was all she needed. She raised her quivering body enough to align her entrance with his cock and slowly started sliding. Whatever her training had been, it clearly didn't compare to the delicious way his girth was stretching her muscles, or to the energy that shook both of their bodies like they were electrocuted. Pain overtook pleasure when she was only half way down. Crowley was enjoying to feel her tightening around him, her muscles spasming in an attempt to get used to the intrusion or to expel it. Fortunately she close enough, he captured her breast again, suckling at her nipple. He felt her become wetter and resume her descent.

“There you are, darling,” he whispered when she engulfed him completely. He let her breath for a few moments, adjust to having him so firmly lodged inside, before he said “now move your hips. Told you all the hard work is on you this time.”

He was wondering if she could hear him, she seemed lost in a haze of pleasure. Apparently she did, because she began rolling her hips, and that part of his mind that remained lucid in the worst of times, as in the best of times, noted that she was doing it just right. The thought didn't bother him if someone had helped her practice. What she was doing to him was bliss. All he had to do was demand a change of pace from time to time, so that he would last longer.

“Slower”

“Faster”

“Slower”

“Faster”

To his regret he couldn't make himself or her wait too long. He was too desperate for this release and he could feel the frustration reaching painful levels for her. He would do better next time.

“Keep steady. Just. Like. That.”

He came inside her, buried to the hilt. She had pushed against him as best she could, but Crowley wished he could dig his fingers in her flesh and hold her hips while he pounded into her. He barely managed to stop the howl that wanted to emerge from his depths. He strained against his chains to the point of breaking the skin in places. Naomi's rolling orgasms began to fade after he spent himself in her depths. She crashed boneless against his chest.

“Did you imagine it could feel like this?” he asked.

His voice sounded raspy, as if the scream he had felt had actually ripped out of him.

“I never dared to imagine it,” she answered. “Always tried to stay away from you, even in my thoughts.”

She made the effort to stand up. Crowley watched her button her shirt, smooth her skirt. With a few deft touches of her fingers even her hair looked fine. It hurt a little, to see the signs of what had happened between them erased. She got tissues from a pocket, wiped his cock and tucked him neatly back in his pants. He was about to snarl something nasty at her when she spoke.

“It was something worth staying alive for. I hope it will motivate you to get out of here.”

She blew out the candle and walked out, leaving him in darkness, but with bright light in his tormented soul.

 


	10. The Second Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, you can pretty much expect some smut in every chapter.
> 
> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television
> 
> Borrowed a line from the awesome BBC show “The Thick of It”. It's going to be almost painful to see Peter Capaldi as the Doctor not cursing like fucking Malcolm Tucker!!

 

Chapter 9 - The Second Time

 

 

The second time she visited his dungeon, it didn't come as much of a shock. It was a very pleasant surprise nonetheless.

She was wearing something far more adept to the purpose of her visit. A nice fairly short black dress with a long zipper that went almost down to her cute arse of hers that was going to get so much use once he was out of those pesky chains.

“This looks remarkably like a booty call,” he said, as if complaining.

Naomi was with her back to him, giving him the best view as she slowly unzipped her dress. She turned her head to look at him, stopping with the zip down to her shoulder blades, and his heart sort of stopped with it. His instincts hadn't let him down before, and some Hannibal/Clarice interaction couldn't harm. He had to act like the dangerous beast that he was, while she had to uphold her part of pure of heart and strong of will beauty.

“I wouldn't want to impose,” she said, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, impose away, darling. You did it so well the last time.”

“Thank you. May I?” she asked, pulling the zipper a little way down.

Oh, she figured out that he liked being in control! If he had to be honest, it wasn't difficult.

“You may. But don't take off the dress.”

She did as told, went closer, with the back of he dress open in a generous V. He sniffed as discreetly as he could. Her human scent was very appealing, whatever French perfume she was using was barely noticeable under the scent of her arousal. Well, well, well, she was definitely enjoying her part of the role play.

“Let's try a variation. Like last time, but with your back to me.”

Naomi performed her part with the efficiency he would expect from her in any other situation. He watched her composure and the word that came to mind was: serenity. They were engaged in the most intimate of all human relationships, both trapped in their human hosts, yet to his eyes she was more of an angel now than when he had looked at her true form. Crowley pulled the heavy levers of his mind and forced the lucid thoughts away. He wanted to enjoy the limited contact his chains allowed without having thoughts and analyses running distracting him from the exquisite sensations her fingers and her lips were leaving on his skin.

She was positioning herself for the descent into heaven, the bolt of electricity shot through them when he was aligned to her entrance. He watched her beautiful back, wishing at the same time that he could kiss and whip the perfect skin. He could feel her eagerness to once again be filled by his huge, pulsating cock.

“No,” he said in an warning tone that froze her movement. “First take care of it from the outside,” he said, and she began moving again, sliding along the length of his cock, mingling the fluid effects of their arousal.

“Come on,” he drawled in the low, husky voice he knew to reverberate against the darkest corners of her being, “play with it against your clit. Think about the way I'm going to touch you when I'm free.”

He felt Naomi shiver at the words, clear sign that her imagination was buzzing. He loved keeping her on the edge of being disgusted of what she was doing and frightened of what he was going to do to her when he was free.

Soon she was beginning to enjoy herself too much. Crowley couldn't help smiling at the realization that his ex-angel was getting used to the pleasures of the flesh. Yep, time to ruin her incipient orgasm.

“Good girl,” he said approvingly. “Now you may take it in.”

He heard her huff of frustration and his cock twitched at the sheer pleasure of being able to affect her when all he had at his disposal were words.

“Slowly, darling,” he said, trying to prolong the heavenly sensation of sliding into her, and there was not even the slightest negative reaction form her. She loved that re-acquainting as much as him. “Slower,” he demanded huskily.

Naomi moved with inhuman slowness, and she was beginning to pulsate around him just from that friction. The last few inches, she was on a plateau of pleasure that caused her breath to turn into delicious sighs. He was sheathed completely, and her inner muscles were already clenching. She leaned her upper body on the table and started rolling her hips. The moves were not controlled, the rhythm was far from perfect, but from this angle, Crowley had a far better chance of seeing their interaction. He was seconds away from orgasm, watching his cock appear and disappear from her body.

“Naomi,” he said. “Sit up, love, and arch back. I want to feel your skin.”

She obeyed, hesitantly. He was sure that she was having a harder time than him handling the powerful sensations.

“Further back,” he encouraged her. “Lean your head to the right,” he asked when her neck was close to his lips.

His lips touched the thin skin of her neck, and he relished the sensation all the more when her pussy spasmed. She was so tight around him, it almost hurt. Almosssst he thought when he began to graze the skin with his teeth. The beat of her heart was fast, the blood flowed through her body at dangerous speed. Crowley's mouth was above her jugular and he wondered what would be like to bite hard, tear the skin and open the vein. He put enough pressure with his teeth to feel Naomi tense up, but decided to postpone the experiment for some other time, when he would be able to heal her. He kept mingling kisses and shallow bites, his breath was growing more laboured.

“All right, love. Do your magic,” he said with a last nibble at her ear.

Naomi straightened up, started moving her hips in that pagan cadence, like Salome's hypnotic dance. This time, Crowley couldn't hold back the roar. He came inside her again, explosively, with the same frustration of not being able to hold her hips while he was the one to make the final move.

He recovered his lucidity faster than he wished, and a thought struck him.

“Aren't you worried that you might get pregnant?” he asked, while he was softening inside her.

Naomi twisted her body so that they were still connected, but she could look at him. She seemed amused at the question.

“No,” she answered smiling, and when he frowned in concentration, she laughed before speaking. “Oh, that mind of yours never stops does it?!”

She stood up and began the same cleaning routine. She was wiping him when she spoke again, mirth evident in her voice.

“Are you worried that I'm going to use your seed to create a clone army?”

He wasn't worried about that particular eventuality until she put the image in his mind! If anything was to be learned about this being, that was that she made her plans well. Either she had some plans with his... fluids, or she had taken measures so that nothing happened. He decided not to think about it and change the subject.

“How is Hell?” he asked, watching her get dressed. Well, zipped up really.

“Chaotic,” she answered.

Crowley gritted his teeth at that. All his well established, orderly hell. He could just imagine Abbadon messing up everything. He didn't even want to think about all the work he would have to put into rebuilding consumer confidence. They had probably defaulted on deals, made some awful showy appearances that made humans more weary of dealing with his people in the future. He was going to have to mop up a fucking _hurricane_ of _piss_ from all of these neurotics!

“Heaven?” he asked, expecting the answer that would make him slightly less annoyed.

“The same.”

He was relieved to hear it. He could imagine the angels going crazy on Earth, full of grace but essentially homeless.

“Why aren't you doing anything?” when she didn't answer he went on. “Of all the things you could do with your after life... you come here. In all the senses of the word.”

Naomi smiled that sad little smile of hers that touched him on some uncomfortably deep level. She soon shrugged it off as she looked into his eyes, and the smile became lighter, almost cheery.

“It's the first time off I've had in millennia. I'm on holiday and I decided to enjoy myself.”

“No one would certainly find you here,” he said, pretending to sulk because he was just a part of her camouflage.

“Don't pout. The Winchesters could find me, and I doubt they would welcome me. And, despite the angel sygils around this place, I sensed at least another angelic presence around here, who would totally ruin my deceased status. Besides, you can't possibly imagine it's easy to get through their defences. Abaddon couldn't penetrate the heavy duty protection they have.”

“But you can?”

“It's mostly protection from the dark side, some anti-angelic stuff. But the anti-human devices they have take just concentration, a good grasp of engineering, and agility.”

She was actually smirking. In a very self congratulatory way.

“You have agility,” he conceded, looking in a very knowing way at her legs and hips. “A real cow girl...”

“Still, getting in is easier, leaving is hard. On the way back my legs are kind of unsteady.”

He looked at her very carefully. Her tone had been somewhere in the vicinity of flippant, but not totally. From her, he wasn't immune to flattery. She tried to make it about sex, but “leaving is hard” had sounded a hell of a lot more serious than that.

“Seriously, Crowley, you have to get out of here,” she said in his silence.

“I'm in stale mate at the moment, darling. Do you have any of your bright ideas?”

“No,” she answered. “Once you're out, how are you going to take out Abaddon?”

“I have some plans,” he lied.

“You, wonderfully young demon! I used to be glad that Lilith hasn't taught you much history.”

She used to be glad. Which meant that there was something she knew and he should know, too. Crowley perked up at this. She had been right to say that he definitely preferred her alive and useful.

“Why aren't there any more Knights of Hell?” she asked, in the professorial tone he found arousing even when she was annoying the hell out of him.

“Bird flu?” he opined.

“You can do better than that,” she said laughing at the notion.

Crowley would never get tired of making her laugh. He might use a lot of tickling when he was going to torture her.

“How do things usually work in our world? What can kill a powerful being?”

“Something equally powerful. Blood relatives. Something that has the same origin. The Knights were as strong as the Archangels, so... other Knights, but there are no others left - good thing, too. Legends say that the Archangels killed the Knights. No Archangels left, either. ”

Naomi flinched a little at that.

“Let's not go around believing all the legends,” she said. "Cain himself killed the Knights with the First Blade."

“I'd like to hire him to finish the job, darling, but I have this intuition that I can't pay what the father or murder charges.”

“Probably not,” she agreed. “But you can use his weapon.”

“Where is it?”

“That... I don't know. Crowley, I don't know everything,” she added when he was about to voice his doubts.

“No, my lady, but you have a curious mind. Very rare in your race,” he said.

He enjoyed seeing her flustered at his words and his unusually earnest tone, but he couldn't much sustain that kind of conversation. He reverted to his default bawdy disposition.

“You were curious about making love to me. We got that out of the way,” he said.

“Twice,” she interrupted him with an expression of fake adoration.

“Aren't you curious how it feels to go down on me?”

“Oh, I don't think that would be fair without you having a chance to show me the meaning of silver tongue demon. And...”

She leaned to whisper the rest of the answer in his ear. He got aroused again, her words painting a hot picture in his imagination, and did not stop her leaving. Her views on the matter were quite valid.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watching “First Born” again, I noticed Crowley saying he searched for the First Blade for decades. To make this fit into my story (I don't want to step on cannon if I don't have to), I'll say that he chased the First Blade because he knew it to be a powerful weapon, not because he knew he one day might need it to kill a Knight of Hell (as far as he knew, all the Knights were dead). So, Naomi gave him a lead, that the First Blade could kill Abaddon. It's important to think so because I believe that Crowley never outright lied to Dean (as he actually states emphatically in the last episode of Season 9).


	11. Naomi's secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm running the risk of turning Naomi into a Mary Sue character, who knows almost everything and has been involved in almost everything, but I think that the angels have been around and scheming for a lot longer than Crowley and because the writers were so kind as to offer a female angel character, she's the one feeding Crowley information, and she's going to be part of the explanation why two vanilla mortals like the Winchesters had the strength to survive Hell.
> 
> Also, I have a doozy of a back story for Naomi, which is probably going to get written. The final chapters of this fic will have spoilers for that one, which will act as a prequel and a companion piece to this one. Writing from a female POV, even if it's a female-angel (grrrr, no such thing right?) should be easier :)
> 
> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television

 

 

“ _...and_ _I'm not going to suck your cock unless you are free to grab my hair, to hold my head, to make me take as much of you as you want.”_

Her words resonated through Crowley's loneliness. They made him dream of exquisite ways to torture her. She had played along with his need for control, but beyond the shared insanity of them actually having sex in the heart of enemy territory, they both knew she could have made him do anything. She could have taken the pleasure she wanted without as much as a kind word to him. And he resented her for the very kindness of pretending to worship him. That read like a sign of pity. He had to punish her for the insult.

The things he did to her... in his mind, in his darkness, in his frustration!

Naomi never visited him again, but the chance to be free presented itself. The King took every bit of advantage he could out of that situation. He negotiated his freedom, got the famous Gadreel kicked out of Moose, and learned a code word that only the brothers knew. All in all, an excellent outcome.

Crowley was feeling excellent. Mostly about himself. He managed to emerge on top again. His “ **Vote Crowley** ” campaign was going well. Having the Winchesters plus Castiel sort of on his side, or at least on a side that was along his side, was as close to a guarantee as possible that Abaddon was for the chop. For good. There was still the irksome problem of actually locating the blade. Hard didn't mean impossible. And Crowley had always loved challenges.

Finding Naomi had been somewhat easier. He was not in the least surprised to find her in a monastery. In his thorough research of this particular foe, Crowley had learned that her current vessel was that of a nun. Undiagnosed at the time, the none had been one of those humans afflicted by Asperger's syndrome. A massive intellect without the burden of empathy. No wonder Naomi had chosen this body! He would bet serious money that Naomi had obtained permission to occupy the body by logical arguments.

 ....................

He was aware that Naomi was not in the monastery for a communion with “Daddy”. She was using their massive collection of texts on supernatural subjects.

It was child's play for Crowley to cast a spell that ensured their privacy. She had been a bad, bad girl not coming to visit him in so long, and things were bound to get loud.

She was looking at the door when he approached, having sensed his presence. She was dressed as a nun, but a different habit than the one she had worn at their first proper meeting. For one thing, no wimple. He could see her face, could really appreciate her hair gathered in a severe, fantasy-librarian bun. And the cute glasses she was wearing were making the picture perfect for the role he had in mind for her.

“Hello darling,” he said.

“Crowley,” she acknowledged him, looking over the rim of her glasses at him.

She walked towards him without hesitation, but Crowley, in full possession of his powers, didn't even need to make an effort to get the sense of her state. Pure, unadulterated fear, without even an undercurrent of arousal. What was even more annoying, her grace was extremely dimmed. As if she had over exerted herself. He looked around the room, taking in the multitude of manuscripts, but before he could start setting up the game, Naomi's voice broke the silence:

“Stop this cat and mouse game right now! What do you want?”

He advanced and she took a step back, her thighs hitting table. She was effectively trapped between the massive wooden table and his body.

“Is this any way to greet your lover?” he asked, vaguely annoyed that she ruined his opening line.

Oh, if he could bottle this priceless reaction, to preserve it forever, to have it whenever he wanted to get high! Shame made Naomi's cheeks burst in flames. Her face was such a lovely pink colour, Crowley couldn't help reach out to touch it. And just like magic, with that touch, arousal spiked through her fear. After that, emotions started showing like a kaleidoscope. Arousal, shame, worry, guilt.

“Cat got your tongue, love?” he asked, holding her chin between thumb and forefinger.

He leaned closer, as if to kiss her on the mouth, and the tension in her body was painful to behold. She had tensed like a violin cord. He could start playing like a virtuoso on such a responsive instrument. He did want to kiss her, but it wasn't the right time. No way near enough build up to take from her the kiss she feared the most. He reached passed her to one of the manuscripts on the table. Naomi grabbed his arm and tried to push him away. He was almost disappointed to note that she had only her human strength. In a split second, she was splayed on the table, with an arm twisted behind her back. Naomi tried to struggle, but all she managed to do was push all the manuscripts off the table with her free arm.

Crowley slid the angel blade from the sleeve of his coat. He had envisioned more banter first, but seeing librarian-Naomi in that position, sensing her so utterly vulnerable was enough to kick his pent up sexual needs into overdrive. He sliced through the black habit that was hiding her from his sight, but paused before pulling the sides apart. He slid the steel under the fabric, resting the flat of the blade against her skin. She shivered, making him want to feel more of her.

“If you want to stop, at any point, just say Colt,” he told her, breaking character enough to offer her the safeword.

He saw her nod and replaced the steel with his fingers. As he made his way under the rough cloth, Naomi shivered even more. The slight tingling of electricity warned him that he was touching her with real affection. The notion bothered him and he threw the angel blade into the table, close the Naomi's right ear. The blade went a few inches in the wood of the table. She gasped, and while the blade was still twinging, Crowley ripped off her clothes. In a rushed movement he pulled down her panties, leaving them across her thighs. She looked beautifully exposed. The scent of her arousal was making his head spin. He ran his fingers along her spine, willing himself not to start spanking her. Not. Just. Yet.

Naomi tried to wriggle out of the uncomfortable position, so he casually kicked her legs further apart, then bend over her enough to grab her arms. Crowley crossed her forearms behind her back and held them in place with his left hand while removing his belt with his right. Once her arms were secured with the belt, he resumed caressing her back, noting idly to himself that he had changed the scenario. The grace suppressing manacles were in the pocket of his trench coat, and the belt he had intended to use for spanking her was around her wrists.

Crowley pressed her against the table and rubbed his confined erection against her ass. She moaned barely audibly, and pushed back into him, the slutty little angel.

“You missed me, princess, didn't you?” he asked.

Her answer was such a quiet moan, he had to lean to hear her better. His torso was now pressing her arms, but his whispers were right next to her ear, his breath was caressing the skin of her neck and her shoulder.

“You've been a naughty girl... Not coming to pay your respects to your King.”

He was bent over her, his right forearm on the table, supporting his weight as he talked to her. He saw her eyes flutter, felt the jolt of a small orgasm shake her, smelt the fresh wave of arousal, and smiled when he heard her whispered denial.

“You are not my King.”

The left hand no longer caressed her back, but delivered a sharp slap on her arse. It came as a surprise and the moan that escaped her lips was quite audible. Crowley smiled. By the end of their session, she would scream. He resumed caressing the very skin he had slapped. The touches drifted from her cheeks, went toward her thighs, then between them. Crowley was loving every new sound he was eliciting from her. She was getting wetter, her panting was getting desperate.

“Then say what I am,” he asked, dipping his fingers in her slickness. Naomi sighed and pushed against his fingers, wanting a deeper contact. “What am I to you?” he asked again, pumping two fingers lazily in and out of her.

When she didn't answer for a few seconds, he stood up, pulled the fingers out completely and slapped her ass. Once. Twice. Three – four – five slaps in rapid succession and Naomi yelped and tried to get away from the pain. He grabbed her hips harshly, his fingers digging into her flesh. He slammed his hips into her, getting the fabric of his trousers wet from rubbing against the very flesh he had worked into meltdown.

“You are my lover,” she said, embarrassment evident in the sudden new tension in her shoulders and neck.

“That I am, princess,” Crowley said, unfastening his trousers. “That I am,” he repeated as he entered her in one slow but uninterrupted move.

Naomi welcomed him, tight and hot as he remembered and dreamt about her. He found himself on the brink of orgasms after what felt like microseconds of pounding into her. He slowed down the pace, withdrawing almost completely, then deliberately inching his way inside, and when he was all the way in, he remained motionless for as long as he could stand it. It turned out that he wouldn't be able to stand it for long because Naomi's muscles were squeezing to the point of pain. He reached to grab her hair and ruined the librarian bun when he pulled at it hard. Naomi's body arched, in pain, but also with extreme pleasure. She screamed and came, her orgasm becoming more intense the more his fingers tightened in her hair.

“Yes, God, YES!” she screamed. “Yes, CROWLEY, God, YEEEEEEEEES!”

He resisted valiantly until the waves of her orgasm quieted down before he came. Although he had the option to pull out and bathe her in his seed, Crowley found that coming inside her was irresistible. Even more so since she had mentioned the clone army.

He untied the belt and gathered her in his arms. They were both shaking, and oddly reluctant to look at each other, as if lucidity would come too soon if they did. Crowley took his coat off and draped it over her shoulders, to cover the fact that the back of her habit was slit. They sat on the edge of the table, in an awkward half embrace.

“How did you get out?” she asked, almost resting her head on his shoulder.

“Oh, the usual. Made myself invaluable and negotiated my freedom.”

He felt her relax a little at these words, but didn't make too much of it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in turn.

“Oh, the usual. Staying dead and keeping my mind alive. I'm trying to find clues about the blade, but... nothing. Did you have any luck?”

“Not with the blade,” Crowley admitted. “But I did get the other part of the set. The Mark of Cain.”

“You don't need the Mark,” she said and pulled out of the hug to look at him.

“I'm not going to be the one using the Blade against that Mad Ginger!” he exclaimed. “It's dangerous. I could get killed.”

When she didn't even crack a smile, he went on with a shrug.

“Cain gave the Mark to Dean Winchester.”

“Dean has the Mark of Cain?” she asked with such horror in her voice that Crowley took a very good look at her. Why would she give a toss about Dean Winchester's fate? He was a tool like any other in their plans. Like others had been before. Like moron Dean Winchester himself had been when it came to caging Lucifer. The boy was quite skilled at unknotting such messes. He was as reliable as a gun pointed to a target. Why was she so upset about?

She hit him. The first blow wasn't hard compared to the punishment Crowley was used to, but he realized she had put all her human strength behind it. She kept punching and he let her, even when his nose broke and his lip split. He let her scrape her knuckles against his teeth. Let her smash her delicate hands against his cheekbones and his jaw. He was enduring the onslaught because he had to find out the reason behind this wildly uncharacteristic behaviour. He put a stop to it only when he felt her gather her grace. He caught her wrists and snapped the magic manacles on. Granted, he had manufactured them with more playful reasons in mind, but they were nonetheless adept of restraining her grace.

“Naomi, talk to me!” he commanded pushing her against the wall.

He almost wished that it was part of another game, a scheme of hers to make him punish her. The King did not wish for things. Nor did he waste time on deluding himself. Something was definitely wrong with Naomi. Just to cover the possibility, he told her.

“Say the safeword, and I'll let you out of the manacles.”

She looked at him with murder in her eyes. They were clearly outside the confines of their games. So the damn manacles better stay the hell on until he sorted out what rattled her.

“Okay, we're not playing. Tell me what's wrong? Why are you acting like this?”

“I'll have to kill you for this,” she said.

She sounded calm and serious. It annoyed him.

“WHY?” he yelled.

“Because, you stupid, ignorant, self serving bastard, you don't know the price of carrying the Mark!”

“Why the fuck do you care?” he yelled back at her. “What does one more human count when it comes to taking out a Knight of Hell?!”

He watched her start to shout back at him and swallow the words at the last moment. Had the moment not been tensed, he would've found it amusing. Her, gulping like a gold fish.

She crumpled, slumped against the wall, the fire put out by tears. She closed her eyes, but the tears spilled out, streamed down her cheeks fast, their weight pulling them down fast. He felt the drops on his hands. They burned into his skin like acid, removing small patches of skin. To have this effect on him, the tears had to be caused by a great deal of pain.

Crowley wished he could torture the truth out of her. It would be far more entertaining than the other way. But the other way was more likely to yield results. So, he put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest, smearing her hair with the blood coming from his ruined face. Naomi started crying in earnest, and Crowley held her, enduring the pain that came as her tears slowly dissolve portions of his skin.

“I'm sorry,” he said and almost meant it although he didn't know what he had done to hurt her. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry,” he kept saying, rocking her gently.

After a while, her sobs subsided. She disentangled herself from his embrace and he removed the manacles without a word. She looked so despondent that Crowley worried that he might have done something irreparable. She wiped her face and went to the table, starting to gather the papers scattered during their earlier fun session.

“Naomi?”

She didn't react in any way. In a matter of seconds all the manuscripts were stacked up neatly in the middle of the table.

“You can't not tell me! You said you'll have to kill me for this. I have to know what “this” this is!”

“I was stupid. I thought you could use the First Blade yourself, not drag a human into this.”

“Naomi!”

The tone was severe now. She was lying to him! Or at least she wasn't telling him everything which amounted to the same thing. Of course he wouldn't accept that as an explanation for her outburst. She turned to look at him. The desperation in her eyes frightened him. And the words that followed shook him to the core.

“Of all the humans, you did this to one of my boys.”

 


	12. The Impossible Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spinning the cannon – I believe that in cannon Naomi didn't see the Winchesters as anything else than useful humans, but in this story, Naomi never wanted to harm Dean, and ordering Castiel to kill him was, for her, the opposite of harming Dean because his soul would come to Heaven and he would be happier there than on Earth. Not to mention that having messed up Castiel's mind so much, he could have misunderstood her order. When Dean confronted her about it, she said “he would hear it that way” as if her orders had been different than they were perceived by Castiel.  
> Thank you featherkitten for pointing out the inconsistency!
> 
> There are still a few weeks till Season 10 and I'll just use some pretext for more Crowley x Naomi interaction, without in any way trying to guess what the new season will bring. No smut in this chapter :(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television
> 
> The title of the chapter – inspired by Doctor Who “the impossible girl”.

Crowley's jaw dropped.

“What?” 

Naomi sighed and pulled Crowley's coat tighter around herself as if to protect herself from physical cold.

“You, who call me a bureaucrat, you think you know about planning? About the patience to make a plan and the resolve to follow through? This is a story about bureaucracy. Sifting through oodles of data to get to the diamonds in the rough. Then spending decades polishing them... We knew of Lucifer's plan. We made the same calculations. Followed the same clues as Lilith. Watched the same families as Azazel. And we had to make our choice.”

Who was “we” Crowley wanted to ask, but knew better than interrupt someone who was finally sharing a long kept secret.

“We had to be ready. If Lucifer had a perfect vessel, so should Michael. We made our choice. Doomed a family to solve the worst moments of the future. We picked them. I, **I** picked them. I picked Mary and John. They were so strong. So young and so strong. They would survive enough to raise Michael's vessel. They were strong enough that if either of them died, the other would be able to protect Michael's vessel. I picked them strong so they would day nobly at the right time.”

Her voice was trembling. The words were coming with difficulty. The sentences were punctuated with shivers. 

“So we made Michael's vessel. We studied John. Michael approached him during the Vietnam war. They worked well together. John was the best fit Michael had found since the beginning, and if the timing had been different, there would have been no need for... what we did.”

Crowley wasn't even trying to hide the surprise. Naomi and Michael, possessing Mary and John Winchester.

“I convinced Mary to accept me. Not as my vessel. More like a hidden guardian. I was a part of her when Dean was conceived. As Michael was a part of John. We didn't do much, Dean's not a nephilim. We just wanted to give the child the best chance to withstand what was to come. I stayed with Mary for nine months, in a corner of her, ready to act if the demons came. We gave birth to Dean. Four years later, I was with Mary for another nine months. I had the chance to be around our first born for nine months. The moment of Sam's birth was one of perfect bliss and deepest sadness. I could sense John's and Dean's joy. Mary's elation. And then I was snapped out of her.”

Crowley's mind was already re-examining his encounters with the Winchester boys in light of these revelations. Humans, with all the flaws and advantages of their species, imbued with angelic strength so subtle that Crowley himself hadn't been able to identify it.

“I did my best to watch over them over the years. I was with Mary when Azazel came for her, but I was forbidden to intervene. I was with her when the boys finally freed her from the house. I tried to protect all four of them, but I had to pick my battles.”

Naomi closed her eyes like she was trying to contain at a particularly painful memory.

“Why do you think we sent a Seraph into Hell to retrieve Dean? He was our child. Something like this had never been done. You wouldn't believe the committee meetings we had to steer to get it done! But bureaucracy has its purpose...”

This time the pause was longer. Although Naomi was shivering in earnest now, Crowley kept his distance, unwilling to interrupt her confession.

“Michael was my commander, but Gabriel had been my mentor. And Gabriel believed in having a trick up his sleeve. Like you. You were the perfect hidden ace. I made sure that no one noticed you. All the things I saw that were extraordinary about you, I glossed over them in my reports. I altered the minds of our brightest operatives to keep you concealed. You were such an anomaly in the pattern that it allowed me to hope... If you were no longer on Lucifer's side, my boys might be spared their destinies. Michael wouldn't take over Dean, and Sammy...”

She shook her head and smiled bitterly.

“They survived, Crowley. They got through everything. I got them both out of Hell. I made arrangements so intricate that no one suspected that they were given a small edge. And now that I just got Sammy out of the Cage, now you have condemned Dean to something I don't know how to undo.”

“What do you mean?” Crowley asked when she stopped speaking. 

“The Mark will change Dean. Will consume him. And I don't know if I can reset him from that change.”

She slowly walked away from him.

“Naomi,” he called after her. 

She stopped, and spoke with her back to him.

“You have always been a wild card for me. Getting your soul out of Hell myself bound us. The ripples of that event went through each of our existence outside linear time. Don't worry too much that you might feel something for me. The connection will start to fade, and in a couple of centuries, you will forget me.”

“And you will forget me,” he pointed out.

This time Naomi turned and did meet his gaze. Crowley could read clearly that she didn't intend to be around for another couple of centuries.

“Crowley,” she said. “I do not have a soul. What payment would you accept from me for a deal?”

“The next two hundred years of your life,” he said, without hesitation. 

“I am serious,” she said. 

“As am I,” he replied. “I want you to be by my side for the next two hundred years. If you are right about the bond, by the end of it, we'll both be free.”

“I can't meet your price.”

“I gave you a discount! My usual payment, a human soul, is an immortal currency. I thought you were going to ask for something important. If it's not important enough for you to give me two lousy centuries, then forget it!” he said, working himself up as he spoke, unable or unwilling to say what truly bothered him.

“It is important,” Naomi interrupted. “I just can't promise I have two hundred years to give you. I need you to take care of the boys if I'm not around any more. If I was sure I have that time, I wouldn't need the deal.”

“Don't do anything stupid, Naomi,” Crowley said, calming down. “We'll figure something out about Dean. We'll take care of Moose, until Dean is healed.”

She came close to him, held his face in her palms, and pulled his head down to kiss his forehead.

“Even without a deal, promise me you will watch out for them!”

He was going to refuse, but the words that came out were:

“I'll do my best.”

His mind was still spinning when she left. The bloody Winchesters were Naomi's sort of sons. Which made him... what? Their sort of step dad?

…............. 

In the following weeks, Crowley fell completely apart. The more he thought about his special angel, the more he resented the fact that he was a backup plan. That she had made Michael a child. He spiralled even worse, into even greater darkness. He allowed his addiction to human blood to consume him. To ruin his ability to focus on the prize. In a haze, he thought about getting Naomi back, getting her to promise him that she won't look for a way out. Getting her to fight Abaddon. He thought about using her like she had used him for so long. To do the dirty work.

Crowley almost lost interest in surviving. His efforts to locate the First Blade – pathetic. His attempts to find Naomi again – doubly so. He settled for Lola and for trying to stifle the sensation of failure by wallowing in partially cruelty free human blood, tried to wipe the feelings for his angel by sleeping with the most vacuous pretty demon he could find. He tried to forget about any obligations, promises, dangers. He took time off. And when he hit rock bottom, he called the boys.

He couldn't look at them the same way. He blamed it on his near brush with humanity when Sam called him out on it. He tried to blame it on a connection between them from all the blood the younger Winchester had pumped into him in that church. Which didn't mean it wasn't true, but it wasn't all the truth. Lying is best when there is a lot of truth in the words and only a sliver of deception.

The King of Hell wanted to restore his connection with Naomi. He understood her a lot better when, still under the influence of his quasi-restored humanity, he had to deal with changing the fate of his own son.

Crowley grew closer to Dean, the more he saw the effects the First Blade had on him. Some serious research gave him hope that he hadn't destroyed Naomi's son. When he was by Dean's dying bed, after he delivered his heartfelt speech, he saw Naomi in the doorway.

“ _Listen to me Dean Winchester, what you're feeling right now is not death, it's life. A new kind of life. Open your eyes Dean, see what I see, feel what I feel. Let's go take a howl at that moon.”_

In the heartbeat before Dean opened her eyes, Naomi whispered her plea.

“Promise me!” as if their last conversation had ended moments, not months ago.

He nodded and made his own demand.

“Promise me you'll stay alive.”

She nodded her agreement and disappeared. Her appearance had lasted mere seconds, and all he had was the testimony of his supernatural senses to tell him that she had been more than a hallucination. When Dean opened his fully black eyes, in the room there were only the two of them. Two demons.

… … … … …

Dean Winchester was a pain in the arse as a demon. Powerful to Knight of Hell level, with an Archangel in his genetic make up, Crowley almost expected the boy to challenge him for the throne of Hades. Instead, Dean  igored Crowley more or less completely and  went back to hang with his brother  and Castiel , their connection stronger than ever. Crowley dropped by every once in a while. Sometimes they summoned him, other times he faked needing their help. 

They were slowly adjusting to this new reality when the bomb dropped. The Cage was open!

With Lucifer walking the Earth again, there was little room left for petty differences. Crowley was once again positioned as the smaller evil, so the Winchesters summoned him to help. He had kept close tabs on them and knew why they called him.

“Hello boys. Long time no fight against Satan,” he said with his customary façade of good humour.

“Cut the crap, Crowley!” Dean said. “How the hell did this happen?!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's my confession: when I was thinking about clueless angel Naomi having to have sex with Crowley without any help from him since the poor guy was tied up, and because I started with the premise that Crowley chose a very well endowed vessel – I thought that Naomi might have looked for a teaching sex partner. One thing led to another and... I couldn't get out of my head the image of Naomi having sex with John Winchester, with Mary's blessing. In my mind, Mary and John became friends with Naomi while she was in Heaven. So much so that part of some very intimate girl talk, Naomi told Mary that there is someone she's attracted to, and the fact that he made her lose control. Mary sort of volunteered John to teach Naomi about sex. I think that there is no jealousy in Heaven and John and Mary's love was strong enough not to be bothered by this act of kindness. And then I thought that they might have even more of a history than that, so... the impossible mother. Anyway, this is part of Naomi's story. Hopefully, there will be John/Naomi smut in a story far shorter than this one.


	13. Saving Archangel Michael

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're heading back to Smutville.This chapter paves the road with wicked intentions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are still a few weeks till Season 10 and I'll just use some pretext for more Crowley x Naomi interaction, without in any way trying to guess what the new season will bring. 
> 
> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television
> 
> Chapter title – a rip off “Saving Private Ryan” :)

Saving Archangel Michael 

 

Of all the stupid things!!!

Crowley was seething. How could anyone be so intelligent and so bloody stupid at the same time! Dean was right. Angels are dicks! Even female looking angels. Dicks!!

Running down the line of how the Cage got opened, Crowley found himself in the same room of the monastery where he had fucked Naomi. Because stupid him, hormonally challenged him, blind and idiot him, didn't wonder too much what was Naomi researching in that particular library.

He replayed their encounter in his mind and cursed for a while, loud and filthy. She must have enjoyed the sex, but at least at the beginning, she had played being helpless to distract him. He remembered her reaction when he pretended to reach for a book after nearly kissing her. He remembered her throwing all the papers off the table while apparently trying to escape his grip. He remembered her stacking everything, in a pile arranged in such a way that he couldn't see even the titles of the books on their binders or their covers.

And yet, he was sure than the rest hadn't been a lie. Not her reaction to him. Not her story. Fucking hell, the story had to be true for her to go off the deep end like that! Losing Dean to the dark side had probably unhinged her enough to open the Cage to free Michael. Her precious commander.

Now the Cage was open, and both remaining archangels were roaming the Earth. There was no trace of an epic battle, which meant what? That they worked together? Crowley almost made the sign at the cross at that. Michael and Lucifer working together would be a very unhappy outcome for someone who had been part of the team that locked them in the Cage.

When he got back to the Winchesters bunker, he was his usual forthcoming self. Which meant the told them about 80% of the truth. The important 20% he kept for himself were the details surrounding her identity. He was going to cheer the day when the last bit of feelings for that scheming, devious, perverted angel was going to leave him.

Crowley was more powerful than ever before. Even the second coming of Lucifer didn't make him cower. The time for playing the inoffensive young demon was long gone. He wasn't stupid enough to challenge Lucifer on the field of battle. All he had to do was play on his strengths. And his strength had always been information. That and using the Winchesters for the really dangerous bits.

While Sam and Dean Winchester were pouring over books and talking to Castiel and any angel they could, trying to come up with a plan, Crowley wasted no time going to the only source they couldn't access because they all thought she was dead.

This time, it was even easier for Crowley to track down Naomi. Not only his powers had grown considerably, but his naughty angel was no longer alone. He found her and a nearly catatonic Michael living in an idyllic New Hampshire house. Crowley snuck in while she was away, and studied Michael. There was no trace of Adam Winchester he cold discern. There wasn't as much of Michael as he had expected.

Crowley made himself a tea, and waited for her.

“Missed me?” he asked when she saw him.

She gasped and her gaze ran toward Michael's room.

“He's fine,” Crowley said, contempt dripping in his tone. “At least, I haven't done anything to him.”

“He's hurt,” she said.

Her serious tone was all the opening he needed to set up the deal.

“You know you can't protect him. Lucifer will recover soon. He will try to get Sam again.”

He watched her shiver. He knew she was going to do anything he asked if he did it right.

“What will happen if you take him to Heaven?” he asked.

“He would be safe,” she answered.

“Really? Than why haven't you taken him there? It's more important for you to be dead for everyone than Michael's safety?”

She looked at him. Crowley could read hate and gratitude in that look. He was forcing her to admit yet another uncomfortable truth.

“If he gets to Heaven, he'll probably refuse to fight Lucifer,” she said.

He had guessed correctly. After decades of scheming together, apparently he was getting to know how her mind worked. The mission came before her siblings, before her boss. Once, the mission had come before her sort of son. Crowley hadn't forgotten that Naomi had agreed to the plan in which Sam would go into the Cage with Lucifer just to protect humanity. That was their core programming.

“His best chance is to be with the Winchesters. You know that That's why you made it so easy for me to find it.”

She didn't have to admit it aloud. It was written all over her.

“I'll take your commander to safety. I'll keep Moose out of trouble, as much as I can. But you, my lady, are too dangerous to be left wondering the Earth unchecked.”

Her head snapped up at this.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You obey me. You put your knowledge at my disposal. You lend me the scheming power of this twisted brain,” he said, his index finger touching the middle of her forehead.

“Crowley,” she tried to protest, but he put a finger on her lips.

“You obey me, Naomi,” he repeated. “You will reside in my dungeon for as long as I have need of you. You will be in chains. You will be mine. Mine to use. Any... way... I... want.”

He let the words sink in. Michael's safety for her freedom.  


	14. The Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Naomi consummate their deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smuttville.  
> I've never been in a D/s relationship, I just sometimes had fantasies and I read about such relationships. Don't be shocked if you know something about it and I'm not getting it right. It's going to be, as in the previous smutty chapters only mildly D/s. I can't imagine Naomi fully sub, nor Crowley permanently Dom. Their relationship has too much of a mental parity, his brilliant mind, her thousands of years of experience. I see their relationship more like James Bond working with a sexy Russian spy to save the world from a bigger threat than each other :)
> 
> There are still a few weeks till Season 10 and I'll just use some pretext for more Crowley x Naomi interaction, without in any way trying to guess what the new season will bring. 
> 
> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television

 

The Deal

 

For a moment he thought he went too far. That he demanded something she was not yet ready to admit she wanted.

“No one can know,” she said.

Crowley almost exhaled at her surrender. Her demand was easy to carry out. Having her was all he wanted out of this deal. He didn't need to brag about it. Besides, he was sure that no one would truly understand how much it meant to him that she obeyed him. It was in part the delicious evil of smearing an angel, corrupting a being that had been created at the beginning of time, a being created to be pure and strong. It was in part because her mind fascinated him as much as she seemed to be fascinated by his mind. She knew answers to questions he wasn't even thinking of asking. She would be a precious resource in his aim to consolidate his power. She would be able to tell him things long forgotten by the rest of the world. He would pay her price of silence. It would make the secrets she shared with him even more effective, if no one knew the source of his knowledge.

And, oh, yes, the sex with her was fantastic! Beyond being an exercise in evil, Crowley enjoyed her body as much as her mind.

“No one will know,” he said.

“Crowley, if someone finds out that I'm alive, you will free me. If someone finds out the details of our... collaboration, I will kill you. Do you accept the deal?”

A thrill went through him at her words. Her tone had been plain, but there was no trace of hesitation in her. Not even when she paused before settling for the same term she always used to describe their relationship. A collaboration. She was going to kill him if he made public the full nature of their... collaboration. Crowley wondered if there could be anything sexier than a beautiful woman threatening to kill him.

He pulled her in his arms and kissed her. Before he could worry about the gesture being too romantic their bodies reacted to each other. The sensation of ice and fire swept through them. Oddly enough, it made them tighten the embrace instead of either pushing away. He was the first to recover.

“I'll take his holiness to the Winchesters. Be at this address in 24 hours,” he said, producing a business card out of thin air.

He didn't have to threaten her not to disobey him. He knew she wouldn't go back on her word in regular circumstances. In these highly unusual circumstances... his dungeon was probably more of a sanctuary than anything else. And they both knew it.

Just because the truth was that he was offering her safety, did not mean that he had to make it easy for her to get in. The address he had given her was that of his favourite manor. Better guarded than the Winchesters' bunker. With more powerful and more subtle angel detection systems than any other place on Earth.

The next day, he was not surprised to find her there, waiting for him. Neither was he surprised of the dirty look she threw him. It pleased him a great deal that she wasn't just anywhere in the house. She had passed his guards without killing any, passed every protective sygil he had in place without triggering them. She looked worn out and her clothes were a bit on the ragged side, but she was in his dungeon.

“That was uncalled for,” she said, referring to his wards.

“What did you expect, darling? You're dealing with a demon,” he said smiling his most annoying smile.

“Indeed,” she said.

Crowley sat next to her on the wooden cot.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked as mildly as he could, smelling the answer before she spoke.

“Of course I am,” she whispered. “Not play-afraid, Crowley. Afraid-afraid.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him. He needed her trust for all the things he had in mind. The serious ones and the fun ones. The only way to have her trust was to be trustworthy. That's why he meant every word he said next.

“I'm never going to harm you. Maybe it's that soul-bond talking, but that's exactly how I feel now. I like playing games with you because you're strong. And you managed to surprise me more than once.”

“I've done such terrible things, Crowley. Being around you... they seem logical and I'm less ashamed. How can the right thing be so far from what I was taught about right and wrong?”

He didn't know whether she was talking about her choice to use Sam to capture Lucifer the first time, or if it was about having plotted behind her commander's back. For all he knew she could think of the slaughter of infants she had overseen two thousand years earlier.

“Times are strange. Humans don't have monopoly over making choices. You are not the only angel to have exercised free will. You make a choice, you have to assume it. That's how it works. You have to know what you are and accept it.”

“What am I, Crowley? What am I now?”

He sensed her need to surrender, to give up control and any ability to choose. He sensed her yearn for him to make her forget the world. For a while.

“Now, you are mine.”

“Yes,” she quoted their deal. “Yours to use. Any. Way. You. Want.”

Well, the serious matters could wait. The dangerous Archangels could be ignored for a while. They deserved these moments. He would never again make the assumption that they had time. Never again let the opportunity to enjoy her pass him by. He believed that their end was still far, but they had been apart for too many years to put the mission before their pleasure.

“Good girl,” he said, approvingly. “That's very important for you to keep in mind. Do you remember the safeword?”

“Colt,” Naomi whispered.

Crowley relished her shyness. She had had to be strong all her so-called-life. Even when she was obeying orders, she had to be strong. She could never break down. She never had a magic word that would stop all the scary things. Crowley was certain that she would use the safeword before she ever got really scared by their games, just to measure the trust she could place in him. He leaned to whisper in her ear, his breath caressing her skin with every word.

“From now on, nothing else you say, not fighting me, not begging me, NOTHING else will make me stop.”

They were so close, he could see her getting goose bumps on her skin. He was monitoring all of her reactions and he noticed the change. There was no longer pure fear. He could sense expectation. Eagerness. The game was on.

“Take off your clothes,” he told her.

Naomi stood up without hesitation and got undressed. He watched aroused and amused how she took everything off, without any lascivious movements and without any trace of self consciousness, then folded them neatly, one by one. She met his gaze with the same serenity as the first time he had seen her naked, all those years ago. In Mesopotamia.

“Oh, you're not fooling me with this pretence of being a good girl. You're obedient now, but we both know you have been a very, very bad girl.”

For the game to work he had to get to her with more than a whip. He had to shake her with some realities. She hadn't intended to free Lucifer, but opening the Cage to save her commander, only made things twice more difficult for Crowley. The King of Hell had been enjoying Heaven without its usual leadership.

Not to mention that, game or not, there were many things he had to learn from her. Crowley loved mixing business with pleasure almost as much as he liked mixing business with pain or mixing pleasure with pain. He was going to mix all three with this being.

“Bend over that bench,” he demanded standing up. 

His cock jumped a little when she did it, exposing herself as he wanted.

“Arms behind your back,” he said, walking behind her.

He brushed his fingertips over her arms before snapping the grace suppressing manacles on her wrists. Naomi hissed as if in pain when her power suddenly vanished. Crowley knew the sensation well. In his case, unlike for her, the shock had not come accompanied by pleasure. Being without his powers had been a nightmare that was not soon going to be forgotten or forgiven. 

Crowley walked around her with a slow pace, enjoying the sight. He waved his hand vaguely and the shackles that were lying under the bench clamped on her ankles. He wanted payback for the way she had used him before.

There were so many things he wanted to do to her, it was difficult to decide what to do first. As usual, when in doubt, he started talking. Words were always useful to him. His voice was a tool every bit as effective as a whip. Also, he was unpleasantly aware that touching her would cost him the ability to prolong the game. He physically yearned to get lost in her, and it was not acceptable. He reached for an elegant riding crop he had on the wall.

“Let's start with the important question. Why did you open the Cage?”

He caressed her back with the fine leather tip.

“To free Michael,” she answered, and yelped when he flicked the crop on her buttocks.

“Naomi, I am not an idiot. I will ask more clearly. Why did you need to free Michael? And why now?”

She hesitated, and he had the satisfaction to give her a few more lashes. His hands were itching. He wanted her over his knee. Wanted to spank her until his palm would sting. All the more reason to not touch her or he'd forget about the game.

“Why do you have to ask me in this manner? I would tell you anything you want to know if you just ask.”

Crowley didn't say anything. He wouldn't lie to her and he did not want to tell her the truth. The truth was that he could imagine the answers and he wanted her to utter the words when she was his in ways she would never forget.

“Why did you need St. Michael free, Naomi?” he asked again.

“Because with him, there is a chance to save Dean,” she admitted.

He resumed caressing her, at first with the crop, but he soon threw it away and reached for her with his hands. He was gentle and bold in his touches. He wanted to obliterated with new pleasures any memories she had about conceiving Dean. It was stupid and he was well aware, but Crowley couldn't lie to himself. He was jealous. Of a past that he couldn't be sure would remain only past, now that Michael was free. And Michael had tasted her... If Crowley himself, with a world and an underworld of beings at his feet couldn't stay away from this one being, how could he believe that Saint Michael will.

“Do you have a time frame for that?” he asked, his fingers reaching between her legs.

“Mnot rrreally,” she said while his fingers were rubbing her clit ever so softly.

“Awww, you like that,” he said, with a smug grin.

“Yeah,” Naomi admitted in a throaty sigh.

“What else would you like?” he asked, never stopping from his exploration of her body.

“I want you inside me,” she said.

Crowley almost stopped from what he was doing at this very open admission.

“That riiiight?”

His tone was barely a question. He was using his voice as another way to touch her. To please her. To enslave her. She shivered at the sound of his voice and all the promises it contained.

“Yeah,” she confessed her weakness again. “I'm here, aren't I? I sealed the deal...”

If he would stand not fucking her for a while, he would've said that sex wasn't what she had asked from him. But he didn't want to wait, either. They were going to discuss the whole business with Lucifer, the healing of Michael and of Dean. Later. Much later.

At the moment his vessel had only a limited supply of blood and most of it had run away from his brain. His cock felt hard, heavy and it hurt how much he needed her. He was angry with himself for not being able to wait while he undid his pants. He was angry with her for making him want her so much while he positioned himself behind her. He was no longer angry when he sheathed himself in her. One day he was not going to be shocked of how good it felt to bury himself inside her. But that day was still to come.

They had their soul bond, but they also had a wonderful vessel-to-vessel connection.

She received him with a hot, wet, tight welcome. With the same sounds that warned she was on the brink of pain with every inch his thickness forced her to accommodate. She received him beautifully honest in her admission of lust and belonging as she chanted his name in the same breath of that of her Creator. It was a wonderfully human thing to say:

“Oh, Crowley, God, yes!” as she came.

“You love your King, don't you, my lady?” he asked, in a daze of his own pleasure.

“Yessss,” she hissed in a deliciously loud exhalation.

He came, hard and unexpected, only that bit of his mind that never lost its cold lucidity wondering if she had even heard his question or she was just lost in sensations.

 

A few minutes later, he led her to his lavish Roman style bathing chamber. It was in the part of his manor off limits to his minions, to ensure the King's much needed privacy.

 

He took pleasure subjecting her to near climax while he instructed her to touch herself in certain ways. He sat on the steps of his bath, only his feet in the warm water, dressed in beach shorts and a t-shirt just to make her feel more aware of being naked before him. He stopped her on the brink of orgasm twice and when he told her to stop for the third time, she didn't, so he stepped in and pulled her hands away from her body.

 

Naomi looked at him, the blue of her irises barely visible because of her arousal. She was panting and frustrated, but he couldn't enjoy torturing her because his own body was making some very unceremonious demands of him. He backed her into a deeper part of the pool.

“Arms behind,” he said when he released her.

She obeyed instantly and Crowley pulled off his shirt. He reached behind her, put her hands on the waistband of his shorts and commanded:

“Take them off.”

He watched her lower herself under the water, kneeling before him as she slid the garment down his thighs, all the way to his ankles. She stood under water, knelt, waiting until he lifted his feet, one at the time. She made her way up, slithering against his body, touching as much of his as she could with her face, her breasts, her hands. Once she was up, Crowley had no shred of willingness to draw out the game. He promised himself again that one day he would not be so kind with her. That day hadn't come yet. He guided her to wrap her legs around his waist and fucked her gently against the side of the pool, the water sloshing around them, fizzing with electricity.

He was sweet and slow, kissing her neck, her cheeks, her lips. When he kissed her closed eyes, tears rolled down. This time, they didn't burn his skin. They tasted like heaven. This time, she didn't scream her climax. She just held on to him, more tightly. This time, she meant it when she said:

“I love my King.”

Like a spell, he came again.

He deserved to be loved.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People, I went a bit off the deep end with the porn. Sorry about that. I guess it's been a while for me and these two are a lot of fun to play with.


	15. Tell Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kind of Plotville. It's actually Set-the-Stage for Smuttville-by-the-Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are still a few weeks till Season 10 and I'll just use some pretext for more Crowley x Naomi interaction, without in any way trying to guess what the new season will bring.
> 
> Disclaimer
> 
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television
> 
> Mention of the wonderful British TV show Red Dwarf, episode “Future Echoes”
> 
> Mention of Guardians of the Galaxy amazingly funny lines.
> 
> All borrowed, all duly acknowledged, I own none of them.

 

 

Tell Me

 

They never acknowledged that the words were spoken. For something like love you need something like a soul, and it would be in poor taste to point it out. Crowley was actually worried how much he enjoyed the idea of her love, even soulless as she was. Even that lucid part of him admitted it. Even that part did not believe that it was just a carnal reaction, an expression of gratitude for the pleasure and safety he provided. Then again, who was to say that's not how love starts?

They were both dressed, office-informal how their vessels found more appropriate. Meaning no tie for him and a slightly less severe looking shirt for her. They were having coffee, and pretending to be human.

“You are going to love Halloween,” Crowley said, looking at Naomi enjoying her broad daylight human disguise.

She smiled at him over the steaming cup. Crowley regretted that they couldn't have more moments of peace. He wondered if they would get the chance to spend Halloween together. This one or any of the next two hundred Halloweens. He believed her prediction about their “love” lasting for another two hundred years. After she dropped that piece of information along with the other secrets about her past, Crowley had looked back and found the subtle clues of someone bending fate in his favour for about two hundred years before she got his soul back. The way they reacted to one another at their first real meeting. In her Mesopotamia. They were getting close to the moment that would bound them. He smiled on the inside at the memory of an old TV show. They had experienced “future echoes” Red Dwarf style. He almost wished he could share with her the wonderful works of art his deals had brought to the entertainment industry. All the Grammy winning music, all the cult TV shows and all the wildly popular ones whose creators had wanted their imagination to come alive so much, they had sold their souls.

“Do you have a plan?” she asked.

He heard the sigh of regret behind her words. All her body language was telling him that she wanted these peaceful moments to last... Longer? Forever?

“I have part of a plan,” he said and when she burst out laughing he knew what she had done that summer.

“Don't tell me, don't tell me,” she said, still laughing. “You have... you have twelve percent of a plan?”

He always loved making her laugh. Although he had nothing to do with the film itself. Those Marvel jerks were so freaking obsessed with superheroes and the battle between right and wrong they hadn't signed any of the contracts Crowley's underlings had offered along the years.

“It's more than eleven percent,” he mumbled and she laughed even more.

Crowley looked away when the laughter stopped. He did not want to see the concern, sadness, weariness settling in, freezing her blue gaze.

“All right, Gamora, start talking. What are Lucifer's weaknesses?”

“It's a bit tricky now.”

She said it with a tone of such diffidence it shocked him. Naomi always knew things. Naomi was the freaking intelligence division of the oldest damn organization that had ever existed.

“Why?” he asked, carefully not showing just how much he was freaked out.

“The rules say...”

“What rules?” he interrupted her.

“THE rules,” she stressed the word and went on “say that an archangel can be killed by another archangel or an archangel blade. Castiel killed Raphael. Gabriel is gone. Michael is the only one left, and the time he and Lucifer spend in the Cage... even if Michael will fight... I' not sure he will win. Don't misunderstand me, Michael is a great warrior and a superb tactician, but... the Cage... for them... it's...”

“Moose is fine now,” Crowley pointed out, in an inquiring tone.

“Moos...? Oh,” she started to ask but she recovered. “Sam has advantages Michael does not.”

“The soul,” Crowley said.

“Yes. You have no idea what it took to get all of Sam out.”

Crowley looked a little embarrassed. He had pretended that he was the one to rescue Moose. He had no idea what it took to get someone out of the Cage.

“So... that was complicated?”

Naomi looked at him with so surprised she seemed a little amused.

“Yes, Crowley. It was complicated.”

“Tell me,” he asked.

He knew that with all the information in the world, Naomi's mind was still unable to make connections as fast or as twisted at him. Granted, she had come close a few times, but if she told him how come Sam got out without the Cage opening for all of them, he might figure out how to close it again, with Lucifer shoved back in.

“Did you really think that once I accepted that Sam might have to jump into the Cage I did nothing to plan his return? Castiel was already tied to Dean from the first time he went to Hell. Blood ties are important, and the boys have shared so much of their lives, their souls are entwined. It was almost easy to tinker with Castiel's initial programming. Retrieve Sam instead of retrieve Dean. It wasn't as easy to build him up enough to get into the Cage and sneak only Sam out without getting them out, but I did it and he managed it.”

“Why didn't you program Castiel to get Michael out, too?” he asked into her pause.

When her pause continued, he knew something bad was coming.

“Because something had to keep Lucifer inside. I knew Michael would survive. For a while.”

“But not Adam,” Crowley spelled out her shame.

She was ghostly pale. Her hands were trembling and he could see how close she was to breaking. The ultimate crime an angel could do. The thing that went against their core programming. To accept the destruction of a human soul. Crowley's mind worked fast. She had sacrificed a soul and chose not to rescue her commander to get Sam out. She was in a far worse state of corruption than he had expected. Corruption by humanity. Well, he could work with that. This angel was vulnerable to turning to the dark side. He hid these line of thought in that black box, indestructible part of his brain. He would take her into darkness one day. But that day hadn't come yet.

“Stop thinking about it. What's done is done. So, Castiel got Sam out. But not all of Sam. Didn't you know that? I thought you said you planned the thing,” he prompted.

“I knew,” she interrupted him, reacting exactly how he expected to his needling. “I contacted Death. Paid the price he asked so he would get Sam's soul out when the time came.”

“That explains a lot,” Crowley said. “I know Death and I could not understand why he would bring back Sam's soul. He could've gotten his ring back at any time. Michael junior isn't exactly a genius and Death knows everything. Not to mention that he failed the bet. So the old skull and bones isn't getting soft.”

Naomi clenched her jaw, and Crowley had to ask.

“What was the real price for Sam's soul?”

“Servitude,” Naomi said.

“Whose?” he asked but went on realizing the answer. “You? You served Death?”

Naomi turned to look at him annoyed.

“Why did you think I didn't do anything before Castiel was unhinged? And before you twist the knife in the wound, I know I'm responsible for a lot of what happened to him. Once we chose him to save Dean, his fate changed.”

Now that the subject came up, Crowley was itching to know who else had been in the running for that job. Judging by her reaction to Dean getting the Mark of Cain, he was surprised she hadn't been the one to go into Hell after her “son”. He watched her take a deep breath and regroup.

“I did Death's bidding. I did simple Reaper jobs and I did complicated tasks. I carried souls into Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. It was a very interesting... learning experience.”

“You learned how to open the Cage,” he assumed aloud.

“I learned where were the clues about how to open it,” she corrected. “As you can see, I couldn't do such a good job as Death himself, and instead of getting Michael out, I broke the door open.”

There was something about her, something a bit off in her body language. She wasn't lying to him, but she was hiding something. That was a shock!

“Naomi,” he began, his tone mildly interrogative, no threats implied. “What aren't you telling me?”

She bit her lips. That was not usual for her. Shyness and shame and shiftiness, all expressed in that hesitation.

“The things I knew about the Cage. About what would happen to Michael and Lucifer inside. About how to get Sam out, a piece at a time, without breaking him apart. Brokering a deal with Death. I'm not that powerful, not that smart and not that sneaky without a little help.”

“But I wasn't the one to tell you any of that...” Crowley said, but his voice trailed off while his mind worked.

He knew that a lot of Naomi's sneakiness came from his own influence, from her plans with Michael, and from...

“Gabriel,” he said.

“Yes. But he's not around any more. Or at least, I couldn't find him. And I tried, I really did. While you were busy with Abbadon, and while the Winchesters and Castiel were dealing with Metatron, I was looking for Gabriel to help me save Michael. That's why I was so stupid about Metatron. Didn't you see that I didn't even manage to retrieve the tablets before you found out about them? I was looking for Gabriel, for ways to get Michael and Adam out of the Cage without releasing the one entity that was actually meant to be in there.”

Crowley looked at her and the need he felt to spank her now was only vaguely sexual. He couldn't believe that she could be so stupid. After all the stupid things she did so far (okay, the first stupid thing wasn't real because she didn't get killed by Metatron as she made everyone, including himself for a while, think. But the Cage thing was very stupid), he was still shocked.

“So, you could've prevented some of the irksome events that have unfolded in the past few years... if you had paid attention. If you bothered to rewire Castiel a bit more, he would've gone back to being a regular soldier. No opening Purgatory. No Leviathans. No me learning of the tablets. No Winchesters reading the tablets and damn near turning me human. No me being chained in their freaking basement like a...”

“It's really not all about you,” she interrupted just as his voice was beginning to rise to the the level of bellow that was so much part of his interaction with his frenemies.

He felt like smoke was going to come out of his ears. Although, if he had to be honest, which he always was with himself, he didn't regret anything. Out of all the mess, he ad emerged on top. His kingship was more stable than ever before. Even with Lucifer around, almost no one had defected. His powers were greater. His allies had been more thoroughly tested. Their weaknesses were more closely known.

“And you still didn't find him. Your mentor.”

Naomi shook her head. He finished the story for her.

“And you decided to bust open the Cage.”

“When Dean...” her voice broke. “I ran out of time. We'll find a way to deal with Lucifer. But to reverse the effects of the Mark... time is of the essence.”

“You were more than happy to indulge me, and yourself, last night,” he said just to see her reaction.

She blushed. She stuttered.

“M-Michael n-needs time to heal.”

“Moose and Squirrel and their feathery friend are working on it,” he assured her.

They finished their coffee in silence. Then went for a stroll in the beautiful gardens of his manor. Silence stretched, without becoming uncomfortable.

“Crowley?”

He looked at her.

“I still don't believe Gabriel is gone,” she said.

“About that... I have some ideas,” he confessed.

He watched Naomi light up at his words. He could see her stifle an urge to hug him. Oh, this damn soul-to-angel bond thing had to stop! He couldn't go around hugging her all the time she looked like he was Santa, he thought while he did it.

When the hug turned to a kiss and the kiss turned to having sex with her, fully dressed, against the trunk of a tree, he realized that he had a whole lot of ideas. He had several leads about Gabriel already. Ever since that revelation that the entity he had met as the Trickster was actually Brother Gabriel, he never believed that guy could be killed.

They were going to follow the leads and find the missing archangel to help them tip the scale. And most certainly, they were going to have fun on their way.

 

 

 


	16. Wild Orchid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel did leave his last words as part of a porn scene... so... Crowley is taking advantage of the situation. To Naomi's unspoken but audible pleasure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smuttville-by-the-Sea  
> Some scenes vaguely inspired by the movie Wild Orchid (mostly part two)  
> I'm not watching season 10 episodes until I finish this story. This should keep me motivated to complete it, right? :) 
> 
> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television

 

  

Crowley and Naomi had spent very little time pooling together the data they accumulated separately for the past few years. Now that their connection was at the peak of its intensity, and time was of essence, they dropped most of the usual precautions. The speed of communication between the smart demon and the old angel surpassed anything either had experienced. They soon narrowed down the possibilities, and decided to visit all the places in order of relevance.

The plan was simple and fun to execute. They would show up in a place they suspected Gabriel used as a playground. Naomi would dim her grace enough to be barely noticeable, just enough to attract the attention of the archangel that had mentored her. Appearing in the egregious company of the King of Hell was certain to appeal to Gabriel's sense of mischief.

There was no way the Trickster could stop himself from messing with them. And if they happened to have fun along the way, that could only make things more interesting for the archangel. Crowley didn't say out loud this part of the plan, but, most likely, Naomi hadn't missed it.

Crowley was almost hoping that they would not find Gabriel in the first place they looked. Almost.

For one thing, he was a planner, not a hoper. For another, being wrong about this meant Gabriel was better than the two of them put together. And that was unacceptable.

 

**\- Pretty Woman -**

 

“You need a few things,” Crowley told her.

Before Naomi could ask anything, he snapped his fingers and they were in the exclusive boutique owned by one of his classiest demons. There was something about Naomi that spoke to him of French haute couture. Just as his own essence was drawn to English tailors.

He captured her gaze, kept her hypnotized while he undressed her in the middle of the shop. He opened her severe shirt, undoing the buttons slowly, brushing her skin with his fingertips, as if by accident. Naomi responded to his touches like a Stradivarius under the touch of a master violinist. Her eyes were closing, in that delicious human reaction to sexual excitation. Crowley loved seeing the blue of her irises disappear into the darkness of her growing pupils. He felt like the disappearing blue was his way of biting off a peace of heaven when he touched this angel in such an impure manner.

She was a perfect toy. She trusted him to the point that she didn't argue about being undressed in public. She trusted that he knew what he was doing. Or was she just waiting for him to make known the nature of their collaboration so he would free her and she could kill him? Crowley rejected the hypothesis. The truth was panting in front of him. The truth was audible in her gasps. The truth was tangible in her flushed skin.

When he slid her shirt off, he kissed her shoulder, scratching her skin with his beard. His lips did not burn – a clear sign that she was enjoying the treatment. As if that wasn't enough of a proof that she was enthralled, Naomi whispered constantly, breathlessly

“You are the King...”

while he unzipped her skirt and while it fell, joining her shirt on the floor,

“...of the Underworld.”

while he used the angel blade to slice off her panties,

“this is so wrong.”

while he tangled his hand in her hair.

“it should not feel so good.”

while he walked her backwards until she was pressed against the counter. He lifted her a little and guided her to lay on her back. Her voice no longer formed coherent words while his skilled mouth descend between her legs. He made her come and scream her orgasm. He made her feel such pleasure that could never be obliterated. Let St. Michael try to steal her away now!

She remained motionless on the counter top for a while. Crowley drank in the beautiful sight of her breasts moving in the slowing rhythm of her post orgasmic breathing.

“So many things make sense now,” she said, with her eyes closed.

Crowley arched an eyebrow, wondering what she meant.

“The choices humans make... if something this intense is a factor... I begin to understand why there is so much sin in the world. So little reason in their choices.”

He smiled, pleased beyond measure by her words. She might be trying to play him, to flatter him, but as he well knew the best lies have at least a grain of truth in them. And her feelings for him were going to be very useful in his attempt to take her into darkness once Lucifer was dealt with.

Crowley helped her get back to reality. They chose several outfits for their trip to Rio de Janeiro – their best guess for Gabriel's hideaway – and then Crowley undid the spell he had used to keep their “session” private. Life resumed around them, and they looked as close to ordinary as two attractive people can look.

 

**\- Rio de Janeiro -**

 

As soon as they stepped out of the plane in Rio de Janeiro, Crowley felt Naomi's anxiety rise to dangerous levels. Her whole body tensed up, and not in the fun way his games affected her. That could ruin his enjoyment of the mission. They were following their best lead for the Trickster, and he was aware of the time sensitive element, but decided that he was going to play with Naomi every available second. The limousine was waiting to take them to the luxury hotel they had pinpointed as the most probable location of the Trickster.

Crowley tried to understand the reason for her reaction before deciding on a course of action. On their way to the hotel, he extended his senses, and allowed the reality of this place to touch his consciousness. At first he felt the hedonistic vibe of the affluent neighbourhood they were traversing. Then came, from a little further away, the raw emotions from the poorer quarters of the great metropolis. Decadence and poverty. Not a unique combination. The stench of violence that came from the well structured crime organizations was quite pleasing to his dark senses. His people had signed a lot of contracts in those parts. But, again, that was not so unlike a number of other cities he and Naomi had met over the years. His own mansion was in the heart of a city with a history of violence and organized crime that had inspired countless movies.

He felt it then. Under all the oh-so-human mixture of self indulgence and despair, he felt the heavy smell of Catholicism. Just great! He didn't mind Catholicism in humans, but it would be incredibly annoying if it raised any scruples in his playmate.

In their suite, Crowley made use of their pact again. He made her serve him drinks naked. Asked her to bend over in front of his armchair with her back to him and stay like that while he drank his scotch so he can study her ass. He would sometimes reach between her legs and trail his fingers lazily along her inner thigh.

“You've been a good girl,” he murmured. “You get a present for being so good,” he said, almost purring.

A small anal plug made of glass materialized in his right hand as he spoke. He caressed Naomi's cheek with his left hand and slid the toy between her folds. Naomi gasped at the sensations the cool, perfectly smooth object her Master was using. The angel was shivering in pleasure and apprehension. He had never used objects before, not counting the manacles or the whip. Crowley had never inserted anything other than his huge cock inside her. He smiled as he felt her almost relaxing, when he dipped the plug in her wet entrance. She must think that was where he was going to fit the little toy. Thousands of years of existence and so little experience. She always turned him on when she was talking like a school teacher, but he was going to love teaching her things.

Crowley offered her a small orgasm by reaching her G spot with the plug. He had to change hands for a while so he could lick her honey off his fingertips. He pulled the toy out with a pop and positioned its tip to her other entrance. She was still shaking in the aftermath of her brief orgasm when he started sliding it inside. He felt her tighten up in shock before she even had a chance to feel pain.

“What...” she began.

“Relax...” he whispered using the tone he had taught her to associate with pleasure. “Trust me. You are going to love this.”

He began teasing the puckered hole. He felt her voluntarily trying to unclench. He knew that she was willing to let him show her new paths to pleasure. The sounds she was making were a maddening mixture of moans, expressing pleasure and pain. Whenever he penetrated her with his thick cock, she still felt a little pain. Now when he was inserting in her ass something that was about half his girth, the sounds were almost similar. He listened intently, noting that the pain was more audible in her moans than the pleasure. He continued sliding the smooth, stylized cock in and out of her. When the thickest part of the plug was lodged in the tight muscle ring, he heard almost no trace of pleasure her moans. He relished the apex of her pain and got drunk on her trust. Even at this point, she didn't use the safe word. She trusted that pleasure was going to come. He knew her surrender was complete by the simple fact that his skin wasn't burning as it did so many times before, when her tears had dissolved his skin like acid, or when holding her hands had felt like holding on to molten lava.

Crowley rewarded her behaviour caressing her clit with his free hand, and moving the toy in and out of her again. Pleasure flooded his lover and this drove him to the edge of forgetting the plan. It took a lot of discipline not to stand up behind her and slide his painfully hard cock in her eager pussy. It took all his self preservation instinct to remember that if they didn't find Gabriel soon, they would have to deal with Lucifer on their own.

When he felt she was ready, almost but not quite relaxed having the plug inside her, Crowley took his hands off her. He stood up and guided her to straighten up. The look in her eyes was delicious. Her whole body was tense, ripples of pleasure would make her tremble every few seconds. He brushed his palms over he hardened nipples, and they felt so good he couldn't help lowering his head to take them in his mouth. He sucked and flicked his tongue over the sensitive flesh causing Naomi's knees to buckle. It took another moment of superhuman strength of will to stop.

He pulled her to his chest and placed his hands on her ass. He touched the part of the toy that stayed safely out of her. She whimpered and he had another moment of desperate need to lose himself in her.

“I want you to be ready to play when we come back.”

His voice sounded thick and if Naomi hadn't been so far gone into her own sensations, she might have commented. He was happy to note that she seemed unable to make fun of him being so heavily turned on.

It took them an unnecessarily long time to get dressed because they insisted on helping one another. And there were a lot of caresses mixed with the buttoning up his shirt, zipping up her dress, tying his tie and putting on her necklace.

“Do you really think this is the best way to go about it?” Naomi asked.

“Yes!” Crowley assured her. “He won't be able to resist checking us up in person.”

He was well aware that dressing up made her uncomfortable. Having her go in public, wait for her mentor, while having a toy in her ass, must have drove her out of her rigid, perfectly controlled mind. For Crowley, the most important argument in favour of this plan was that it was the most fun way to smoke out Gabriel.


	17. Wild Orchid part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some scenes vaguely inspired by the movie Wild Orchid.
> 
> A small re-write – let's pretend I mentioned that the last bit of conversation from the previous chapter was not spoken in the elevator. I'll edit the chapter so this note won't mean anything for anyone who reads the story from after I post chapter 17 or just didn't notice this detail.
> 
> I'm not watching season 10 episodes until I finish this story. This should keep me motivated to complete it, right? :) 
> 
> Feedback would help me so much to finish the story sooner, so... feedback please!
> 
> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television

Wild Orchid

Crowley was already at the bar when she walked in. He made the effort to conceal the shiver that ran through him when she entered the room. The orders he had given her for the night were simple. Pretend they're strangers. Pretend that she only speaks Portuguese. Wear the mask.

She sat at the bar, ordered a cocktail in perfect Portuguese. He could see her eyes sparkling, at the edge of tears – embarrassed to be there, in that dress, with a toy inside her, at the orders of a demon, and, worst of all, enjoying everything.

He had left their suite before she had put on the mask, and he found it intoxicating to see her like that. So close and yet so out of reach. She was supposed to be the bait of their rather rudimentary archangel trap. Then why was he the one drawn to her? Why was he itching to get close to her? Why was he feeling like their time together was running out?

 

The answer to the last question came in the form of the young man who approached her. Their time together was over. Their arrangement... at an end. Crowley had expected the appearance of Gabriel under some guise or other to be the end of their affair. It wasn't. It was Dean Winchester.

Dean's body language proclaimed attraction to the masked beauty, his attitude advertised that he wasn't paying attention to whatever had brought him into that room. Crowley sighed, focused his hearing and waited patiently for her sign.

He witnessed the level of her stress rise while Dean went behind her, whispering something quite spicy in her ear using such a sensual tone that Crowley was impressed. He watched as Naomi tried not to shake, not to slide off the bar stool, not to crumple. Crowley realized that she thought it part of his game for the night. He felt her skin crawling as Dean's lips almost touched her neck.

   

“Colt,” she whispered, and in that second Crowley materialized on the bar stool next to hers.

 He coughed, with malice aforethought. To his credit, Dean didn't startle. Probably because he was well aware of Crowley's presence in the room.

“Cock blocking much?” Dean asked.

“What foul language!” Crowley only half pretended to be disgusted. Somehow, despite all the things he had done to Naomi, all the things Naomi had allowed, wanted, begged him to do to her, despite all that, he still saw her as pure.

“She doesn't speak English,” Dean said, but at Crowley's raised eyebrow, he looked again.

Naomi closed her eyes as Dean reached... and undid the ribbon that held her mask. She did flinch when Dean's fingertips touched her cheeks, removing the mask from her face.

“Naomi!” he exclaimed in an awed whisper.

Behind them, a theatrical clapping broke the spell. The three of them turned, to see Gabriel, looking the same as when Crowley had met him, while he pretended to be nothing more than a Trickster. The Trickster. Before Dean had outed him as being the missing archangel.

“Magnifique!” Gabriel exclaimed. “Quite the mis-en-scene!”

Crowley and Dean recovered from the surprise – one because he was expecting the archangel, the other... because he was an Winchester.

“Before you ask, I can't help you,” Gabriel said. “And I can't help you because of all the stunts the two of you pulled lately. You really thought you closed Purgatory and the Leviathans are nicely dealt with, didn't you? Neeeever even crossed your mind that someone like me was going to get stuck somewhere, with his back against the door, pushing all the time so it stays closed while monsters are banging on it trying to get in!”

A few more things fell into place for Crowley. His beautiful mind made sense of a lot of inconsistencies he had noticed for the past few years. Gabriel – the being that wanted to nothing more than be carefree and have fun at the expense of the world had been forced to raise the sword and defend the gates.

Dean seemed to have reached the same conclusion because he addressed Gabriel with his usual directness.

“Ok so you're stuck here and can't come with us. But you can actually help. You're the one who told me how to close the Cage the first time. Help us put his ass back into it again!”

Gabriel's upper lip twitched a little, with distaste. Crowley wondered if this was due to the fact that Dean was talking about a being who, evil though he was, was still his brother. Or if it was simply the fact that Dean doing the talking was now a demon.

Apparently Naomi understood that she needed to interfere because she spoke, her voice sounding every bit as dry like the bureaucrat Naomi she had pretended to be for most of her life.

“What happened to Michael?” she asked.

It was Dean's turn to betray emotion with a twitch of his mouth. The boy was pretty fast at connecting dots and he had probably guessed that Naomi knowing that something was wrong with Michael meant that the she had worked with Crowley for quite a while. And with that, because the terms of Naomi's deal stated that if anyone found out, she would be free, Crowley lost her.

Crowley's dark and twisted soul was hurting. He had lost her. Again. It was hurting so much he almost missed the look that went between the two angels. Almost missed the brief humming in the air that betrayed a blast of information exchanged between the feathery bastards.

Naomi hung her head for a second. Crowley realized that he hated to see her defeated. Naomi submitting to him was beautiful. Naomi being defeated by events... unbearable.

“The Cage can't be re-made,” Gabriel answered Dean. “You will have to take him into Hell. Chain him there. And make sure he stays where you're putting him.”

Crowley felt Naomi shiver before the archangel's next words.

“Which means... someone will have to guard him all the time. Like Gadreel was supposed to keep the Garden safe,” Gabriel went on.

“Like you're stuck here keeping Purgatory closed,” Dean said.

“What can bound Lucifer? Even in Hell,” Crowley asked, fully aware of the vulnerabilities of his Kingdom.

“A righteous man,” Naomi whispered.

Crowley had become so in tune with her body that he knew she wanted to reach for Dean's arm. She wanted to cover the Mark of Cain, to try to heal it despite knowing that she could not.

“Oh, great!” Dean exclaimed.

“Do you know any?” Gabriel asked, with a tone close to disgust again.

For a being as close to certifiably insane as the Trickster, Crowley found it almost insulting to see him so obviously disgusted to talk to a couple of demons. As if to confirm the Archangel's distaste, Gabriel spoke again, this time directly to Naomi.

“Dark paths you've been treading, little sister. Dark and unsavoury company you're keeping.”

Dean broke the silence with a wise crack about Gabriel sounding like Yoda. But in that silence, Crowley cherished Naomi's reaction. Shame. A deep shame that pushed her even more into darkness. Pushed her towards him. He was going to enjoy so much ensnaring this angel. He couldn't believe that he could almost see her fall. So completely delightful to have help from one of the highest angels.

Gabriel simply disappeared.

“Well, that was helpful!” Dean said.

“It was,” Naomi said, her tone quite calm.

“So... you guys have a plan?” Dean asked.

“Part of a plan,” Naomi answered.

Crowley almost smiled at the words. His very own Gamora. Then the realization that he lost her hit him again.

“I still have some things to settle with Crowley. Please go back and take care of Michael. I'll be there soon and everything will be all right. He is very vulnerable now and he needs protection until I can fix... this.”

“What's wrong with him?”

Dean's question went unanswered. Naomi looked into the boy's eyes, her “son's” eyes, and only said one word.

“Please.”

“Ok. When are you coming?”

Naomi's gaze ran to Dean's arm, to the spot where the Mark was hidden by clothes.

“Soon,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

Crowley was feeling forgotten in this exchange, but didn't interfere. He felt that he owed Naomi to allow her to talk to the being that she considered to be her son.

When Dean left, she turned to Crowley, her gaze down, on the mask she was twirling in her fingers.

“This is the first time I feel I'm doing something selfish. But now that our deal is off, there is something I have to do. For me. For you.”

Crowley watched her, without saying anything, guessing what she was going to say and almost not daring to believe. If she was willing to spend precious hours with him... she had fallen further than he had thought.

“This is the first time both of us are truly free. Free to refuse and free to accept. I want to share my body with you one last time. I don't know if either of us will survive. And even if we do, we'll be on opposite sides again. I want to be yours one last time. If you would have me.”

He forced himself not to shudder. She was saying all the things he wanted to hear. And only one that he hated to hear. One. Last. Time. The power of these three little words was almost crushing him.

He did the stupidest, most romantic thing he had ever done, unable to stop himself. He took her in his arms and whispered in her ear.

“I very much would.”

They walked toward the elevator, and Crowley realized that they could have teleported to their suite, but he wanted to make these moments last as long as possible. All of a sudden, time had become precious to him, as it was for the poor humans with their limited lives.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so I loved Guardians of the Galaxy! Don't sue me :)
> 
> No kidding, please don't!
> 
>  
> 
> Tbh, I don't remember very well if they said much about how Purgatory got nicely closed, with Dean in it. After that... the big bad Leviathans just stayed nicely put in Purgatory, but when they had to the Winchesters and Castiel went in and out. So.... I'm just using it as a device for keeping Gabriel out of the thick of the action because the story is meant to be focused on Crowley and Naomi.


	18. End Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more smut. Getting to the ending. Trying to tie up the loose ends.
> 
> If you were wondering. I don't feel worthy of writing Supernatural level action. This whole fic is just a pretext for some Crowley x Naomi interaction, without in any way trying to guess what the new season will bring.
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer
> 
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television

Once they were back in their suite, they seemed to run out of words just as they were running out of time. Yet when he undressed her, he did it slowly, every move he made, every touch he bestowed on her had one essential purpose: to make her forget that their time together was drawing to an end. And make himself forget that very same thing.

He walked Naomi toward the vintage chaise longue. He guided her to kneel on it, with her back to him and her face toward the massive mirror. He needed to see as much of her as possible. And he wanted her to see herself coming. To see how beautiful she was. To see pleasure painted on her always serious face.

She was on her hands and knees and his patience ran out. He loosened the collar of his shirt, unzipped his pants and popped the toy out of her. She looked so beautiful. She seemed so impossibly tight. Crowley slid his hard cock inside her just for the lubrication he was going to need but found it difficult to leave the hot wet heaven he had entered. He teased with his finger the other entrance and the tightness worried and excited him. Naomi had a small orgasm from his short, pulse like movements before he pulled out. She moaned beautifully disappointed by his exit. When he began the assault on her other entrance, the sounds changed.

He would have torn her apart if they had tried this without preparation. He was way too thick for an anal virgin. Even so it still hurt to the edge of losing hope that it would ever turn into pleasure. They could both take pain beyond human limits and as long as the skin and muscles endured, so did they.

He watched in the mirror as tears fell on her face. And he knew that their cause was not the physical pain he was inflicting on her. He cursed her in his mind. They could have this forever, if she only changed her allegiance instead of choosing to protect the cold heaven she no longer had access to. He couldn't find it in himself to hate her. He was in the position to punish her for making him suffer. He knew enough about pain to make sure that he did things to her that would never turn into pleasure. But he didn't. He leaned over and ran his fingers along her back, tracing her spine, tracing beneath the shoulder blades, where her wings used to spring. He bent over and caressed her breasts, kissed her shoulder, her temple, and whispered in her ear his darkest secret.

“I love you.”

She froze, for the briefest of moments and allowed his simple statement to sink in. The pain was turning into pleasure, but she kept crying as she experienced a different shade of dark pleasure. Pain shouldn't feel good. Being loved by a demon shouldn't make her happy. But words like “shouldn't” had no meaning in such moments.

\----------------------- 

Later, they were lying in bed, still refusing to admit that time was up. Reality was beginning to reasert itself.

“What did Gabriel tell you?” he asked, stroking her hair.

Naomi sighed before answering.

“That Michael might be gone forever.”

“Any ideas why Lucifer hadn't made a move yet? Or has he made his move and we just can't see it?”

“He thinks that Lucifer is weakened, too, and our best chance is to trap him before he is fully restored.”

“How?”

“You know how!” she said sharply.

He did. The thing Lucifer needed the most was the perfect host. Moose. And that put Naomi at the same point again, putting a human soul on the line. Having to accept that her other “son” was going to be the bait, and maybe the sacrifice to get rid of the devil. Crowley did not hate that outcome. Far from it. To end up having both Winchesters on his team – one inside Hell, keeping Lucifer bound into his body, and the other walking the Earth, having turned into Cain.

“It's going to be all right,” he said, holding her a little tighter.

“That's what I told him. I spoke like I was his mother and wanted to make everything better. But I'm not. And I'm not sure I can fix... anything...”

“We'll find a way. We are Groot.”

She held him more fiercely, and started laughing, shaking in his embrace. He felt her muscles distend, felt her relaxing in his arms and felt no guilt that he was planning to trap her at the same time as they were trying to trap Lucifer.

 _You, momentarily wingless angel, are my friend,_ he was tempted to say, but didn't. He enjoyed the weird feeling of strength given by her arms around him. They were indestructible together. Having the Winchesters and Naomi was the perfect outcome. Yeah, with such allies, he could take on Satan himself! He would have to, in any case, but the chances of winning were a lot better with her at his side.

 

\-------------------------

Crowley took her to the Winchesters' bunker, and because no one needed to know that Naomi could enter at will, they knocked.

Castiel opened the door and didn't seem surprised to see her. Dean had obviously shared the news and also he was probably able to sense her approach. The look on the seraph's face was just about the right mixture of distrust and disgust. It was wonderful. Everyone Naomi had ever had an allegiance to seemed to be disappointed in her, pushing her further away from the light. To make everything perfect, Crowley was looking forward to Sam's reaction, and, with a bit of luck, to Michael's. Being reviled by her “son” and her “husband” would be so nice for him.

Crowley pretended to go look for his Knight of Hell, leaving Naomi and Castiel alone in the living room, but he veiled himself, curious to hear their conversation. He had a feeling that Castiel was too disgusted to communicate with Naomi like Gabriel had.

“I can smell Hell all over you,” Castiel said as soon as they were alone.

Crowley couldn't tell if the angel meant anything about him in that statement. He waited for Naomi's answer, curious if she would lie to her former go-to seraph.

“Just as I can smell it all over you. It hangs on us after we descend.”

“No one smelled that on me,” Castiel said, distrust and disgust equally clear in his tone.

“No one else can recognize it. You can, because you've been there, too. It smells differently on us than on demons or humans.”

She had that professorial tone of voice that never failed to arouse him. Crowley was sorry when the conversation was interrupted. He was sure he would learn interesting things. But Dean came in with Sam and Michael. Only because he was looking at her attentively Crowley was able to catch the micro expression. The slight softening in her features. The warmth in her eyes. That thing that looked a lot like love. She was with her human family. In a blink of an eye, all was gone. Cool, bureaucrat Naomi was all anyone could see.

“Alright you two, get to work,” Dean said.

Crowley was amused to note that even with the enhanced demon senses, Dean couldn't pierce through his cloaking.

“Three of us,” Naomi said and with a vague gesture in his direction ripped off his veil.

All except Michael and Naomi startled at his sudden appearance.

“I was eavesdropping. So sue me!” he said in his customary tone, that of a lovable rogue.

..............................

It took them a while to come up with something that had a chance of working. No one was happy with the solution that, once again, Sam was supposed to be placed in Lucifer's path.

It was little surprise that the final decision came to the Winchesters and Castiel. They closed themselves into another room, leaving Crowley, Naomi and Michael in the living room. Naomi wasn't taking this part of the proceedings very well and left the room. Crowley was wondering where she was when Michael spoke, from Adam's body, for the first time. Crowley had a sense of the immense power coiled in the ephemeral human body – an image of the huge bug in an Edgar suit from the first Men in Black movie came to Crowley's mind.

“I wasn't there when Sam was conceived. Naomi wanted the second boy to be protected, too, but my presence was not necessary. Even if he was to be Lucifer's vessel, she considered that her influence would give the child a better fighting chance. Actually, even the first time, it wasn't me she took as lover,” Michael said.

Crowley raised an eyebrow. It was strange enough that Michael would address him at all, but to share such information... was most suspicious. Not to mention that it didn't make sense. Why would he deny that he had been Naomi's lover? Well, if the term lovers could apply for what Michael and Naomi were. Jealously, Crowley decided that it did apply. But Michael surprised him even more with the next words.

“It was always about John. She acted like his remote guardian angel ever since Henry Winchester disappeared. She has known this bunker for a long time. Naomi was part of the team that had to figure out what happened to the Men of Letters and with Abaddon. She questioned John when he was four. And in all the years after that, she watched over him. I think she started hating me when I forbade her to save John. It was such an oddity... Watching her grow attached to this human. Watching her want to protect him and Mary when Azazel had them in his sights. When Mary made the deal to bring John from the dead... Naomi became obsessed with watching over this family. When I finally understood why, it didn't matter any more.”

“Why?” asked Crowley.

Michael looked at him with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. As if the archangel could see straight to the core of his being. And if he could see Crowley's darkest secrets, he would see the secret that reigned over all of them. That he needed Naomi's love for him to be real.

“Of all the beings in these worlds, you should be able to make an educated guess.”

Crowley felt like rolling his eyes and saying something offensive. But, since that would guarantee an end to the confession like tone of the conversation, he just said:

“Nothing springs to mind at the moment.”

He was disgusted by the blandness of his statement. So out of character!

“Come on! Don't be modest. It's the same reason the two of you are connected.”

“What?” the word came out before Crowley could clamp his mouth shut.

The wheels started turning. He wanted to smack the serene smile off Michael/Adam's face.

“She's the one who got his soul out of hell.”

Crowley thought about that time. When Devil's gates were open. He wasn't in charge then. John was in Alaistar's care. And despite Alaistar's efforts, John hadn't broken down. He had not been the righteous man to shed blood in Hell. He didn't break the first seal. Lilith had been seething at the time about Alaistar's lack of success. And what was even more incredible – he had gotten out of Hell. Just walked out. And up.

“I didn't have to go deep after him,” Naomi said.

He hadn't heard her approach. She sat next to him, not next to Michael, Crowley noted, but her words were meant for the both of them.

“John fought his way to the gate. Since he was a little boy I taught him to never stop fighting. Never lose faith. Never allow darkness inside. I worked on his mind like a hacker. I didn't allow him to remember me. He didn't even know I existed. He came from a line of men who had been fighting evil for millennia. It was like talking to Adam again.”

Adam? This being he had thought to know was talking about the first human being as he would talk about his first hell hound. A first pet. Or maybe not. Maybe it was that almost love which was the most an angel could feel about the creations they were meant to protect.

Until a stronger bond appeared.

“Let me get this straight. You had a connection with John Winchester because you got his soul out of hell?”

Naomi didn't answer. In her awkward silence, Michael answered for her.

“Worry not, demon. She only gave John a hand to get out. Their connection was shallow compared to the one you two share. She put everything she is on the line to recover your soul.”

Crowley turned his face from Naomi to Michael, who kept talking.

“Castiel can sense only the stench of Hell over her. I see more clearly. I also see your soul yearning for her grace. That's why she's hiding her grace more and more. That's why she lives like a human and desperately keeps up the pretence that she's dead. To protect you.”

“What?” Crowley heard himself ask the same stupid sounding, sass lacking question.

“You would be drawn to her grace. Your soul, dark and twisted as it is, would ruin your mind. Like... a magnet next to a watch.”

“Naomi?” Crowley asked.

She looked at him. Embarrassment was painted all over her face.

“It's true,” she said. “This bond is artificial. It shouldn't affect your choices.”

Fuck that! Crowley was about to exclaim and tell her that the bond had bloody well affected his decision for years when Michael spoke again, to Naomi this time.

“One question remains to be settled. Are you fallen into darkness, little sister?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story about Naomi's presence in John's life is in my other story “Lived”.


	19. The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer  
> Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television
> 
> The title of the chapter is... just because it’s a good line for the end of an adventure. This chapter has been written for a while and the Lucifer-thing was always planned to be this, but I can’t write the end of the love story. The story keeps dragging me a way and although I feel it as the right ending, I can’t help hating it. It’s a bit of a cop out and something that left me unsatisfied in so many stories I read. 
> 
> Oh, and please forgive the lazy writing. I just couldn’t describe the trap – if you’re reading this you saw enough Supernatural to fill in the blanks and imagine it. All I wanted from this story was to have a pretext for more Crowley – Naomi interaction.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

 

 

He felt Naomi about to answer, but the words seemed to be stuck somewhere in her depths. Crowley wondered if her silence meant that she had already fallen or if Michael’s words were forcing her to evaluate her conscience. He hated the possibility that she might be able to stop her fall. That she might find the blessed strength to crawl out of the honeyed darkness he wanted to share with her.

The conversation never continued because the Winchesters and Castiel returned.

Crowley’s responsibility in this plan was to make sure that certain supplies would be in the right place at the right time, so he left. He wasn’t worried about missing anything because he had made sure that one of his spy-coins was securely placed in Naomi’s clothes. He did his job while constantly eavesdropping on her. Neither she, nor the people around her were saying much and that was worrying him. The only interesting thing proved to be something that sounded a lot like a prayer. Naomi was by herself, waiting to do her part, when she whispered the strange prayer.

_“Please, John. Be the miracle you were always forced to be. Please, John, one last time, save the boys. Save the world. Please, John.”_

He couldn’t make sense of that. John? The Baptist? She had known the original Adam, so... she could pray to John the Baptist. The memory of Michael’s words rose unbidden. _It was always about John._ That John. A spike of jealousy bothered him, but only for a moment because his time to act had come.

Crowley made his appearance at the appointed time, and to his horror, the containment circle was empty. Lucifer hadn’t fallen for their trick. He took in the details of the scene in a split second.

His attention was drawn to the way Naomi was staying close to Michael. There was something subtly wrong in her stance. She had that “about to jump on the grenade” look but somehow she did not appear ready to become a shield for Michael.

Suddenly, everything changed. Michael/Adam looked at Sam and Naomi dropped the pretence. She stepped in front of Michael/Adam and her eyes sparkled, her grace so much suppressed lately finally infusing her fragile body.

“You will never have the boy again,” she told Michael in Enochian.

Crowley was about to comment on the insanity of that statement when he saw the change in Michael/Adam. And, for the first time in his existence, he panicked at what he guessed.

“You’ve always been the smart one, Naomi. Michael did not deserve such loyalty,” the angel spoke, in Enochian as well.

“It’s rude to speak in a language not everyone understands,” Dean said, concern noticeable in his voice.

Castiel had assumed a defensive position in front of Sam, at Dean’s side. A seraph and a knight of hell side by side – Crowley filed the image away for later leisurely mockery.

“Michael is strong. He will win,” Naomi said in plain English.

Dean’s “what the fuck” never left his lips. Everything in “Adam’s” posture spelled the true nature of the possessing agent.

“Lucifer!”

Crowley felt panic rising at this confirmation of his suspicions. The creator of his race was not only free, but a few steps away from him. And he had witnessed Crowley working with angels and with the Winchesters for days. Plotting his destruction no less! Crowley could have howled in frustration. He had been so close to having it all and this particular situation did not fit any of his contingency plans.

All the angels on the scene were gathering their grace. Lucifer, Castiel and Naomi. And, out of all of them, Naomi, at the peak of her power, was the weakest. Crowley just stood frozen while Lucifer spoke, sensing the archangel’s massive power, no longer hidden.

“Michael was weak. I consumed him almost as easily as I consumed the boy. I don’t even need the vessel you so kindly constructed for me,” he said, pointing at Sam. “Your beloved John cheated on you. He made this adequate vessel,” Lucifer gestured at Adam’s body before adding “that has NO angelic spark to protect it. No little piece of your programming lurking in his mind to help him withstand the darkness.”

Everyone sensed the new presences at once, but the reactions varied. Sam and Castiel were the most surprised. Dean’s first reaction was one of mixed hope and pride. Naomi’s stance didn’t waver in the least and Crowley finally made sense of the plan inside the plan.

John and Mary Winchester walked hand in hand toward Lucifer.

“Michael, I offer you my body,” John said in a clear voice. 

Despite the solemnity of the moment, Crowley couldn’t help an impish grin to the words. He couldn’t help finding humour even in this situation. The smirk vanished when he became aware of the surge of power. He had been surprised to feel the coiled power inside Adam’s body before, but now they were witnessing a battle between two archangels inside a human body. It took barely a few seconds of human time, but Crowley felt it as millennia of war. Michael ripped himself from Adam’s body and entered John’s.

And John was not just a willing host, but a strong man in his own right. A good man. It took the blink of an eye for Michael/John to throw Lucifer, in Adam’s body, into the trap and close it. Lucifer’s howls filled the night, but every attempt to leave the circle caused walls of fire to shoot from the ground and encase him.

Outside the fiery trap, a family scene was taking place. Mary and John hugged their children. Michael apparently had taken a page out of Naomi’s playbook and hid his essence, allowing the reunion to take place. Dean seemed embarrassed about his status as knight of hell and had tried to stay away but John gathered him in a fierce hug. Sam had tears in his eyes and Mary was radiating and kissing each of her boys in turn.

Castiel and Naomi kept away from the family, both of them busied themselves studying Lucifer in his trap. Crowley walked between them and slapped them each on one shoulder squeezing them affectionately. After all, they were his very favourite angels. So... cooperative.

“So, let’s get the trap downstairs,” Crowley said, barely audible due to the fallen archangel’s bellows.

Although this was exactly the plan they had made earlier – once Lucifer was trapped in the circle they would transport the whole thing to a special corner of hell – both angels turned to look at him as if he was mad.

“What?” he asked honestly confused.

“We can’t abandon the boy in there,” Naomi said, and Castiel nodded.

“Now wait a minute, your beloved commander is out. Lucifer is trapped. Why mess things up?”

“Because there’s a soul at stake,” the angels answered at the same time.

“No. I’m afraid there is not,” Michael said, in John’s voice. “He didn’t lie when he said he consumed the boy’s soul. I tried to stop him and failed. Once he did that, he became much stronger than me.”

Crowley tried to not look pleased at this revelation. Luckily no one was looking at him while he failed miserably. His smug satisfaction got a little dented as he watched Michael and Naomi get to work. It was unsettling to see how quickly they were weaving their net around the trap. Crowley hated this harmony between them. Michael or John didn’t matter. Crowley hated it. He allowed it to happen because it got rid of Lucifer for him, but he was seething.

Once the net was secure, he created a portal and with Dean’s help, they dragged the bound archangel into the depths. He focused his entire attention to the task, unwilling to look back, unwilling to see Naomi next to Michael.

“You can go back now,” he told Dean once Lucifer’s prison was fitted in the corner of hell he had prepared for the illustrious prisoner and his angelic bindings.

Dean nodded curtly and left. To be with his family no doubt. Lucifer had stopped howling for a while. Once he was alone with Crowley, he started speaking. Just as Crowley had feared earlier, the archangel had been able to see into him. He had seen his worst secret. He had seen his need. Crowley had feared what Michael would do with that knowledge. He had no defence against Lucifer’s words.

Lucifer started talking. He talked to Crowley about Naomi. About Michael. About John. The archangel poured so much truth into what he was saying that Crowley was overwhelmed. His mind struggled, but could not deny the truth of the words. He absorbed the torrent of stories for hours. The battles Michael and Naomi fought side by side. The description of all the times Naomi and Michael had made love wearing their Mary and John meat suits. Sharing Adam’s body with Michael had also meant that they shared all Michael’s memories.

Crowley’s perfect mind fought its way out of the madness Lucifer’s words had thrown him into. It took longer than he had imagined possible, but he made it. He was still the one outside the cage, and Lucifer was still the one trapped. Crowley managed to fight off the temptation to free his creator and serve him while he ruled the Universe. The pain of the knowledge that he would never have Naomi, that he had never had her, that he had been just a pawn in her and Michael’s plans, was almost unbearable. He had been deeply tempted to surrender himself to Lucifer’s will. To let Satan out and become a mindless drone.

 _“Your mind is flawless”_ she had said.

 _“You can make a difference”_ she had said.

 _“You better prove that you are special and imprison the creator of your miserable race or I will come after you,”_ she had said.

In all the years they’d known one another, Naomi had never been wrong about him. He was special. He had been able to imprison his creator, and since that meant that she didn’t have to make good on her threat of coming after him... he was going to go after her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want more details about John and Mary’s appearance, read “Lived”.


	20. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might not be the best ending, but it just came to me today. And it felt right to me. 
> 
> On a cheerier note, I can finally see seasons 10 and 11!!!!!

 

* * *

 

He walked away from Lucifer, his beautiful mind as sharp as ever. He prioritized, subsuming all his decisions to the get the resources needed to win Naomi. First he made sure his reign of Hell was unchallenged. He let everyone know that he had contained Lucifer. He killed a few of the most prominent demons whom he knew had designs on his seat, and he did it in such extreme manner that the productivity of his troops skyrocketed for the following months.

When he returned into the world, Crowley looked for her. Discreetly at first, but the more time passed without any signs of her, the less cautious he became. He spread the rumor that he had unfinished business with her, making it clear that he was in the revenge for a something she did to him mood. None of his minions came up with anything, even after the big reward he offered for information about her.

After his contacts in the ranks of the angels assured him that Naomi hadn’t ascended with them, he was getting ready to knock on Heaven’s door to ask for an audience with Michael. He even asked the Winchesters and their pet angel about her a few weeks earlier. After the usual exchange of taunts and insults, they confirmed that Naomi hadn’t returned to Heaven, nor was she anywhere on Earth as far as they knew.

Just to make sure, he organized a very thorough census in his dominion, just in case the sneaky angel had hid herself right under his nose. She was so totally likely to pull such a move just to make him look stupid.

He’d gone as far as to go to Rio and make a deal with Gabriel to allow him access to Purgatory in a way that ensured that none of the Leviathans got out. The tricky little bastard had gotten a very good deal for that particular favor, but Crowley counted it as a win since he was able to check that place off the list of possibilities for Naomi to hide. He had little hopes that she was there and the crisis in his kingdom which cut his search short was welcome. His foul temper was made fouler by his inability to find one blessed angel. He exercised his temper by another wave of executions of traitors or sympathizers of the previous regimes.

Before setting up the meeting with the last archangel, Crowley had a flash of inspiration. Visit the Winchesters old house. The one in which Azrael had killed Mary. The one in which Naomi and Michael had helped conceive Sam and Dean. He was surprised how not deserted it looked. He sensed the presence of the brothers, and now that he knew about it, he could just about discern a trace of Naomi in them and in that house. He manifested in their living room and was shocked to see John there, with the boys. He concentrated but there was no trace of Michael. Just John Winchester, as alive as he hadn’t been for years.

“What are you doing here, Crowley?” Dean asked, sounding bored and annoyed at the same time.

“Just visiting. I did some spring cleaning and I have an upper management position that would be perfect for a Knight of Hell.”

Dean rolled his eyes, but John spoke. He didn’t yell or even raise his voice, but Crowley felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a shiver go down his spine. There was no need for magic when a good man was speaking to a demon.

“You are not welcome here, demon. We do not hunt you now and you’d be wise to stay away.”

It was Crowley’s turn to roll his eyes. He did the casualness he didn’t feel. There was something about the man... other than his basic goodness. He couldn’t identify what it was, but it was making him very curious.

“What, not even offering me a drink or something? Weren’t we allies in our fight against Lucifer just five minutes ago?”

John stood up as if to bodily throw him out of the house, when Mary came from the garden with a bunch of freshly cut flowers. Crowley froze. He understood what was so special about John. As soon as she entered the room. He sensed the trace of Naomi on her, and recognized than John had it, too, even if to a smaller extent.

He vanished as he had so many times before in front of the real Naomi. He went to the bank of the Euphrates, where their journey had started. Naomi had sacrificed her essence to bring her pawns back to life. In chess, when a pawn reaches the other side of the table, it can turn into anything. In this case, the Bureaucrat Queen of Heaven had given herself up for her pawns. What a complete waste!

Crowley howled his pain away. He went on with his life, amassing more power with the passing of time until he became a real threat to Michael himself. Somehow, he never mustered the energy to mount an attack on Heaven. What was more, after the first couple of decades, Michael himself opened a diplomatic channel with him. They would talk over the fate of the world, fighting side by side when a new catastrophe threatened to destroy everything.  

And all that time, for all the years that passed, he virtually took Naomi’s place, protecting the Winchesters. He was particularly protective of Mary although he never told her anything. He would sometimes catch her look at him with a strange expression. As if trying to figure out why he was helping them.

John Winchester died in his bed, at the age of 92. A few months later, Mary was on her deathbed. Crowley was circling the house like a dog who had been forbidden to enter the master’s house. Late one night, Dean found him on a bench at the corner of their street.

“She wants to talk to you,” he said without introduction.

Crowley followed him into the house without a word, as if he were expecting it. Dean left them alone. He sat in the chair by her bead, not knowing what to say. He was tingling with expectation. His fondest hope was that Mary’s death would release Naomi’s essence once again. In the deep pocket of his coat, he held a simple box enchanted to house her until he could find a proper body for her.

“I’ve been thinking about telling you for many years,” Mary said, looking at him with such focus he shifted in his seat a little. “I’ve watched you grow so powerful. Looking for something to make you miss her less.”

He startled a little at this. She was wrong. He didn’t miss her. Which her? He wished he could deny it but knew that doing so would sound exactly like a confirmation.

“You kept the same body for decades. You kept protecting us. As if you’re trying to hold on to her.”

Mary smiled.

“She loved you, too. You know that right? This is the only reason I decided I can’t die without telling you.”

He heard her breath, shallow, her body failing her.

“You are so intelligent, so cunning. How you fooled yourself for so long I can’t understand.”

This definitely piqued his interest.

“What do you mean?” he asked the dying woman.

“You are aware of the vast power of angels. How could you believe that bringing back to life two humans would consume her?”

Crowley’s jaw dropped, trying to process the news. Almost praying that she didn’t die before finishing what she had to say.

“You knew her better than most. Maybe better than anyone. You looked for her in Heaven and Hell. You still offer a reward to get information about her. Think, Crowley! Where did you search least and why?”

His mind started working. He had looked for her. Looked for traces of her in the history of the world. Actually managed to get Michael talking about some of Naomi’s early missions in ancient Egypt. He had talked to Gabriel about her. It had been easier to talk to Gabriel who had already witnessed their connection. Their last night of passion. In Rio.

He felt like smacking his head. That bastard sneaky low down trickster archangel had fooled him! Every time he went to Rio, something was happening in another part of the world or the underworld, distracting him. Even the time he went into Purgatory to look for her, he had been interrupted by news of a rebellion in his kingdom.

She saw the realization on his face, but spoke the words. Maybe after seeing him get things wrong for so long, she wanted to make sure he was arriving to the right conclusion.

“Where would an angel who loved a demon atone for her sins?”

“Purgatory,” Crowley said between gritted teeth.

He had been an idiot. An utter complete blind idiot.

“Thank you,” he said to the old woman.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked.

With a snap of his fingers, Crowley disappeared from the Winchesters’ house and materialized in Gabriel’s hotel.

“You bastard!” he said.

Gabriel shrugged, poured another scotch and offered it to Crowley.

“She asked me to,” Gabriel said, as an explanation for hiding Naomi.

“Now I’m asking you to,” Crowley said in a tone that did not admit retort.

Gabriel took him back to the gates of Purgatory.

“Don’t try anything funny, like trying to seal the Gates. As you can see, I am rather annoyed at what you did.”

He spoke calmly, knowing that he didn’t have to prove his power to the Trickster. He was too smart not to know that Crowley’s power had far surpassed Lucifer’s.

As soon as he stepped into Purgatory, Crowley extended his senses to locate her. He had grown accustomed to his power. He might well have been blind the first time he had looked for her compared to what he could sense now.

He located her in a matter of hours. She was hunting down a Leviathan through a dark, humid jungle. The monster was running towards the tiny woman. She stepped to the side and slashed at him with her sword before being swiped up in a net she had obviously set up earlier.

He approached her slowly, unwilling to startle her and unbelieving that he found her.

“Hello,” he said.

The passage of time was different here. She did not look any older than last he had seen her, almost half a century earlier. He looked just the same because he had taken excellent care of his meat suit. Mary had been right. He kept this particular body because it was the one she had touched.

And yet she didn’t seem to recognize him.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him to the right. The monster’s slobber was dripping from the net on the place where he had stayed.

“It’s poisonous,” she explained and let go of him. “Hello,” she added with a half-smile.

“Hello,” he repeated.

Her half-smile turned into a genuinely amused grin that seemed to light up the jungle. She looked at him intently, and reached her hand out to him. Crowley closed his eyes when she delicately cupped his cheek.

“I know you, don’t I?”

He nodded, not quite able to speak yet. She came closer, and traced his features with trembling fingers.

“Don’t feel offended. I don’t even remember my own name. You came to take me out of here?”

He nodded again. He felt he was going to burst with hope.

“What was I to you?” she asked softly, tracing a tear that rolled out of his eye.

“Everything.”

His voice sounded unsteady. Croaky. Unrecognizable to anyone who had ever met him. Except for her. The woman who didn’t remember who she was pulled his head closer and brushed her lips against his. The sensation was perfect. He wanted to remain in that moment forever. With the last remnant of lucidity, Crowley picked her up in his arms and started running. The direction was not important. His will to get out was going to manifest the portal.

It did. The apparent reality of that place tore. He held her close and stepped out of Purgatory into the penthouse suite of Gabriel’s hotel. The Archangel was there, and sealed it instantly, but Crowley didn’t give a damn. All his attention was focused on the woman in his arms. He watched her memories return to her. He saw her features regain the inner light he had always seen in her. Her eyes sparkled again with the cold intelligence that was more dear to him than the sight of his throne in the netherworld.

“Crowley?” she whispered.

He waited for her reaction. Dreading it to be rejection, not quite hoping it was going to be acceptance.

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. The sound of the door closing behind Gabriel coincided with the moment Naomi’s lips touched his.


End file.
